Is that really the whole story though?

For many, there are significant problems with this narrative. Ongoing protests in many places around America have been a key component in by which a frustrated group works to find their voice. Those protests had been ongoing in South Carolina for years — celebrated here at Daily Kos year after year. In 2014, Hunter, a front pager noted that South Carolina whites thought that persons of color were being “too demanding" asking for the flag to come down.

Later that year, it was Meteor Blades who picked up the call to take the flag down.

But it was the willingness to protest defined by Bree Newsome post the South Carolina shooting that tore the flag from it's post, forcing the governor and others to realize that putting a symbol of hate back up near the state house sent the wrong message about what South Carolina was supposed to be.

Hillary Clinton’s assertion that persons of color simply need to "melt the hearts” of Republicans who oppose them is a dangerous message that doesn’t match with the reality that many of the urban community face. The heart of her message is well intended - that there is no place for violence in politics — but it creates a false equivalency; putting the burden equally on the oppressed with those who are promoting the oppression.

Patricia Bynes, Ferguson, Missouri Community organizer put it this way in her Facebook tonight:

I'm supporting Senator Bernie Sanders in this primary. People of color have every right to stand up to racism. It will actually take white people to confront it and end it. If racism is ignored white privilege and all its wonderful trappings will exist. Many people aren't trying to give that up. That is the status quo and they like it.

Over the last few hours, I've had time to speak to a few Missouri elected officials, from local city government to state senators, and there is a universal agreement: the protesters in St. Louis did not seek violence. Do not equate them with those who did.

The right of protest is an important one, and Hillary Clinton’s use of terms in her statements tends to imply that the protesters incited or looked for violence in order to get this result. In fact, what we have video proof of, from many other Trump rallies, is that peaceful protest were barely tolerated, often leading to individuals being kicked out, forcibly removed, and in at least one case, punched & beaten.

Hillary could have taken a moment to decry the hatred, the anti-American spew that these young people are protesting, instead, she releases a statement that just.. well, fails. Deray McKesson sums up his response in his normal, eloquent fashion:

x .@HillaryClinton, for your campaign's sake, please do not release another statement this weekend unless there is an (inter)national crisis. — deray mckesson (@deray) March 12, 2016

The model in South Carolina that Hillary Clinton speaks of is a horrific example. An unthinkable hate crime that resulted in multiple deaths, which leads to sympathy for change.

American young voters, persons of color, women and others deserve a more thoughtful response. If they must wait for a brutal hate crime, and then act pitiful enough to get mercy from those who can give it, there is something terribly, horribly wrong with our system.

Hillary Clinton can freely talk about protest. She can make her own claims to it. But a protest of Trump in St. Louis and Chicago is NOT the Charleston, South Carolina shooting.

No one walked in with a gun and killed people simply because of racist intent. No one showed up with the plan to do violence. No one had murder in their hearts.

Charleston, South Carolina is not a model for anywhere in the country. It is a warning, a horrific, unbelievable warning, of why people protest to stop this from happening in the future.

Update:

Note. I see some believe “this statement is all about Trump’s rhetoric”, this is, however, not at all the way this is being received. It isn't the way I read it the first few times I encountered it.. I thought much more like this:

x No, HRC. Just no. pic.twitter.com/KzlkmYEX81 — Kirsten West Savali (@KWestSavali) March 12, 2016

If her intent was to just say: Trump is causing this problem, I would have encouraged her to be far more direct in her statements. A statement which opens itself up for wide interpretation is not what is needed right now.