U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II speaks in Cedar Rapids on racial tension: ‘We have a problem’

CEDAR RAPIDS - Racial tension in America is something U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II says he is all too familiar with.

But it's not just a thing of the past.

'I have not felt the racial tension in my life that I feel today,” said Cleaver, adding he grew up in Texas during separate water fountain days.

Missouri's 5th District representative was in Cedar Rapids Saturday speaking during a roundtable discussion at the African American Museum of Iowa on issues facing minorities. The visit came in the wake of police-involved shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota this past week, followed by the killing of five Dallas police officers by a man who said he was 'upset at white people.” Cleaver, who was raised about 35 minutes from the site of the Dallas shootings, said his Washington, D.C., office on Friday received numerous calls from angry people shouting the N-word

'We live in a country that refuses to admit there is a race problem,” he told the crowd of about 15 African American community leaders. 'We have a problem.”

Representatives of the Hillary Clinton Iowa campaign helped organize the event held at 10 a.m. at the museum, 55 12th Ave. SE.

'Having it this week after the really soul-crushing events, he'll be a great person to open the discussion here,” said Sue Dvorsky, the women's outreach chairwoman for the Hillary Clinton Iowa campaign, before the event.

He said 'I felt threatened” is the buzz term cops often use to justify their shootings of black citizens even when they are legally carrying a gun, which he said is in part caused by media impressions of black people as dangerous. However, many of the laws perpetuating police killings of black men, such as routine traffic stops, come from local and state governments.

At a federal level, Cleaver told the leaders he believed Clinton would not ignore any part of the population.

'We need a leader, not a dealer,” he said, adding Clinton would not be able to bring the country to a stage where 'everyone holds hands and sings Kumbaya,” but that she would lower the temperature of the tension.

One man in the audience asked what he could do in the community to get people from both sides of the political isle, and both black and white, to understand racial issues.

'It's our tone,” Cleaver said. 'I think our tone may be more important than our ideology. We need people who are interested in social change ... who are boisterous, but within the realm of law.”

Cleaver said the man who killed the police officers in Dallas is harming the racial tension, not helping.

Stacey Walker, a candidate for Linn County Supervisor, said the Cedar Rapids area should be concerned about African Americans dying at the hands of police forces around the country. Young black children see the aftermath of these events and it affects how they view their lives, he said.

Bernard Clayton, the vice chairman for the Iowa Democratic Black Caucus, echoed Walker's thoughts about how the events of the past week impact Iowa.

'Eventually it comes here,” he said. 'It'd be nice if we lived in a vacuum, but we don't.”