Yes, government should fix failing schools, but the criminal justice system needs to be completely overhauled.
In fact, Rubio is on the wrong side of the issue according to a new poll that shows more than 60 percent of voters in key battleground states of Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina and Nevada feel federal prisons are packed with too many nonviolent offenders.
And more than 70 percent of voters in those states feel the criminal justice system should be “rehabilitating criminals to become productive, law-abiding citizens.”
Why wouldn’t Rubio embrace this concept? Because Rubio, like many Republicans, are long on talk and short on substance.
And let’s be clear: Rubio, who was speaking at a CNN town hall in South Carolina, was responding to a voter’s question about systemic racism — he didn’t volunteer to discuss the issue and he doesn’t talk about much about racism on the campaign trail.
“One reason you see educational and academic underperformance, not just in the African-American community, but in the Hispanic community, is because a disproportionate number of our children are growing up in broken homes in dangerous neighborhoods, living in substandard housing and forced by the government to attend a failing school,” he said. “They’re going to struggle to succeed unless something breaks that cycle.”
Like many Republicans, Rubio tells us what we already know: Racism exists. What he doesn’t offer is a detailed plan to address the faulty systems and institutions which perpetuate it, leaving African-American voters left to wonder if Rubio could truly be a president for all Americans.
What do you think?
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Marco Rubio’s Race Card Doesn’t Work was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
