You Tube screen grab
One can analyze this ad infinitum but the fact remains, Hillary is showing her supporters that she will not be intimidated/educated by the #BLM groups. Her goal is to display her strengths against adversity as opposed to her Democratic opponent’s (Bernie Sanders) perceived “weakness”.
But my question is, while she’s playing for the cameras and her base, has she even tried to read up on the #BLM organization and it’s goals? Or does it even matter to a “conservative/moderate” Dem?
ADDICTING INFO
Two representatives of Black Lives Matter confronted Hillary Clinton after a town hall meeting in New Hampshire and it was quite enlightening, at least if you’re a liberal.
The two activists, Julius Jones and Daunasia Yancey, came to the town hall meeting but the room was full, so they waited in an overflow room. After the event, Clinton came back and had a 15 minute conversation with the two BLM representatives. That’s quite a long time for a busy politico.
They asked Clinton about her husband’s policies, which helped bring about today’s mass incarceration of African-Americans. She spent about the first three plus minutes of the video listening to the issues brought up by the BLM representatives.
Clinton responded that she’s spent most of her career focusing on giving kids the opportunity to meet their potential. She went on to say that the country has still not recovered from its “original sin,” (slavery) and that their movement is critical. She also suggested that the movement become more pragmatic and come up with some agendas to fight for along with fighting against general racism.
The BLM reps weren’t exactly happy with that answer. “If you don’t tell black people what we need to do,” Jones said to the candidate, “we won’t tell you what you need to do.”
Before giving a substantive answer, Clinton turned sarcastic and said “then I will talk only to white people about the very real problems.” She did finish that with:
Look I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You’re not going to change every heart. You’re not. But at the end of the day, we could do a whole lot to change some hearts and change some systems and create more opportunities for people who deserve to have them, to live up to their own God-given potential, to live safely without fear of violence in their own communities, to have a decent school, to have a decent house, to have a decent future. So we can do it one of many ways. You can keep the movement going, which you have started, and through it you may actually change some hearts. But if that’s all that happens, we’ll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation. We will not have all of the changes that you deserve to see happen in your lifetime because of your willingness to get out there and talk about this.
Source: MSNBC
Here are the videos:
Clinton may not have looked at the Black Lives Matter website, but they do have a list of policy demands, including justice for Michael Brown, that the federal government stop arming police with military weaponry, that the Attorney General release the names of the officers killing black people and for a decrease in police spending and an increase in spending for black communities.
Judging by their Twitter account, it seems that Black Lives Matter wasn’t happy with her answers:
While the interaction was certainly clumsy on Clinton’s part, she is right in that if she becomes president, she can help affect change through policy and some policy demands would potentially go a long way, but BLM has put out policy demands. Unfortunately, no one in the room seemed to know them.
