FACEOFF ON RACE & VOWS

Dems appeal to blacks before S.C. Hil prods Bernie on big ‘promises’

THE DEMOCRATIC presidential race is zeroing in on race.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton took turns in a critical debate Thursday night — only their second head-to-head matchup of the campaign — taking credit over who was best suited to represent the interests of African-American voters.

Sanders, who broke bread with the Rev. Al Sharpton in New York on Wednesday in a sign he was making inroads with influential black leaders, confidently predicted that race relations under his presidency would “absolutely” be better than they are under President Obama.

And he continued his vocal push for “fundamental reforms” in the criminal justice system.

“We have got to demilitarize local police departments so they do not look like local occupying armies,” Sanders said during the PBS-hosted debate from Milwaukee.

“Today a male African-American baby stands a 1-in-4 chance of ending up in jail,” he said. “That is beyond unspeakable.”

“And I hope we could all agree that we are sick and tired of seeing videos on television of unarmed black teenagers being shot by police officers,” Sanders said.

Clinton, for her part, mostly agreed.

“We have to restore policing that will actually protect the communities that police officers are sworn to protect,” she said, before pointing to other areas of society where racism exists — and pledging to fix them.

“There are other racial discrepancies, systemic racial discrepancies, in this state as in others, in education and in employment,” she said. “(Problems that) push young men out of school early, that deny them employment opportunities.”

“We also need to talk about other ways of helping these communities,” she said.

Asked to respond, Sanders cordially remarked, “Nothing Secretary Clinton said do I disagree with.”