Aspiring black leaders are often asked to transcend race, even though no one ever asked, say, Hillary Clinton to transcend gender. This is a precarious race straddle that most members of the breakthrough generation seem to reject. Even the most well meaning white Obama supporters seem to take deep satisfaction in this idea. Obama, they insisted, could be raceless, a reasurringly optimistic view of America's deepest burden that ignores countless peices of evidence to the contrary.
Gwen IfillWe needed someone to recognize the importance of check and balances, accountability, transparency. There was a real systemic problem at South Carolina State, a problem that has gone on for 25 or 30 years
Gwen IfillThe latest national polls show a tightening in the race to the White House, especially in key states like Ohio and Florida. But when it comes down to it, winning in November [2016] will depend on which candidate has a viable path to 270 electoral votes.
Gwen IfillI just think we as consumers of information media must be very clear what it is we are consuming. Whether we are choosing to get our information by listening to people fight about it. Or whether we're choosing to get it by listening to the facts or watching the facts as they're laid out and then reaching our own conclusions. It's very different ways of info gathering, but it's not all journalism.
Gwen IfillI don't think that Donald Trump represents the traditional Republican values and heritage of my party. That's one reason that I don't support him. The Republican Party has always revered the individual. We led the way in abolishing slavery, for example, and we recognize the dignity and worth of every human being. it is clear that Donald Trump, by his derogatory comments, by his mocking of the most vulnerable people in our society, by his marginalization of ethnic and religious minorities, doesn't reflect the traditional Republican values.
Gwen Ifill