Hillary Clinton met with five activists of the #BlackLivesMatter movement last week behind closed doors, where things got a little contentious while discussing the best ways to address problems in the criminal justice system.
Members of the movement’s Boston chapter met with the presidential candidate last week after they were denied entry to her campaign event in New Hampshire.
In exclusive videos of the meeting obtained by GOOD Magazine, Clinton is shown criticizing the #BlackLivesMatter movement for not proposing a specific law or policy change.
“Your analysis is totally fair. It’s historically fair. It’s psychologically fair. It’s economically fair,” Clinton said, in response to a question that blamed her husband Bill Clinton’s former administration in part for mass incarceration. “But you’re going to have to come together as a movement and say, ‘Here’s what we want done about it.’ Because you can get lip service from as many white people as you can pack into Yankee stadium and a million more like it, who are going to say, ‘Oh, we get it, we get it. We’re going to be nicer.’ That’s not enough — at least in my book. That’s not how I see politics.”
One of the activists responded, “I say this as respectfully as I can, but if you don’t tell black people what we need to do, then we won’t tell you all what you need to do. This is and has always been a white problem of violence. There’s not much that we can do to stop the violence against us.”
Clinton interrupted, “Respectfully if that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with the very real problems.”
“That’s not what I said,” the activist told Clinton. “What you just said was a form of victim blaming. You were saying what the Black Lives Matter movement needs to do to change white hearts is a policy change.”
“Look, I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate,” Clinton said. “You’re not going to change every heart. You’re not. But at the end of the day, we can 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.”
Watch both videos below:
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(Photo/Video Source: YouTube)
