"Hillary argues: all we’ve ever done is try to help you people"
Whenever I hear the words, "You People", whether they are tied to
Blacks, GLTB's, women, or goat herders, I can safely say that the
speaker of such words knows absolutely nothing of value on the
subject. As a Blind Man, I have had those very words laid on me and
my friends, over and over again with nothing of value ever coming out
of them. "All of the politicians who resort to such words are of
absolutely no help. And that's the good news. Usually the speaking
of these patronizing words constitute the beginning of trouble. When
we were working for the passage of our Commission for the Blind in
Washington State, a long-time state senator grabbed my hand with his
pudgy, wet hand and said, "You People deserve everything you're asking
for". And then he went into the senate and voted against our bill.
"You People", is a way of dismissing those we do not want to deal
with. I have come to the place where I reply, "There is only one
People talking to you. I am not, you people. I will call you by your
name, and request that you call me by mine. I would never be so rude,
so thoughtless as to refer to you as, you people. Please show me the
same respect."
Do not be afraid to demand respect. It may be the only way you'll get it.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/25/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
..> affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing the
Boardman writes: "After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a
quintet of respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, 'Yeah, well,
respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white
people about how we are going to deal with a very real problem.' More than
being nonsensical, she was actually trying to avoid the reality that white
violence against black people is an offense that only white people can
stop."
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo: Charlie
Neibergall/AP)
Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
25 August 15
Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing
After listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, “Yeah, well, respectfully, if
that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we
are going to deal with a very real problem.” More than being nonsensical,
she was actually trying to avoid the reality that white violence against
black people is an offense that only white people can stop. And she was
also
avoiding her own, very real role in promoting federal policies that have
made black lives matter less and less over the past two decades.
Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and others of
Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene, New Hampshire,
after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the activists out of the
room
where Clinton was speaking because the room was full (they heard her speak
with others in an overflow room). But then the Clinton campaign arranged
the
after-event meeting at which cordiality and calm were the rule.
This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
August
9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives Matter
activists. There, two women took over the podium as the candidate began to
speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing Sanders. Bernie held
out
his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came the tip-off: no one took his
hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black Lives Matter women took over the
event and shut it down. On their website they had posted a comment echoing
Malcolm X in 1964, who had echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
We will ensure this by any means necessary.
After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his disappointment
“that two people disrupted a rally attended by thousands” in support of
Social Security. He added that “on criminal justice reform and the need to
fight racism, there is no other candidate who will fight harder than me.”
The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute exchange
with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released August 19).
Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After a
friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the candidate,
Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from her iPhone as she
asked about the difference, if any, between the Hillary Clinton of twenty
years ago and the Hillary now:
… you and your family have been personally and politically responsible for
policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international
war
on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State.
And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence
and
how you plan to reverse it?
For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused to
offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug policy, or any
other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back, “listening hard”
but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in her
empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She filibustered,
in
effect, for a minute or so about “concern” and “re-thinking” and “different
circumstances” and “looking at the world as it is today,” without actually
saying anything specific or meaningful. She was talking down to her
listener, almost lecturing, without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be
suggesting that the policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was
good then, but maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways
now.
Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: “Yeah, and I would
offer
that it didn’t work then, either, and that those policies were actually
extensions of white supremacist violence against communities of color. And
so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that, about the fact
that
actually while … those policies were being enacted, they were ripping apart
families … and actually causing death.
“Yeah, I’m not sure I agree with you,” Clinton replied. She’s not sure?
She’s had twenty years to think about race in America and she’s not sure
whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she’s not sure
what she thinks is real? Next she said, “I’m not sure I disagree that any
kind of government action often has consequences,” which means nothing and
is unresponsive. That was Clinton’s choice, to be unresponsive, rather than
admit she’d been wrong twenty years ago, when “there was a very serious
crime wave that was impacting primarily communities of color and poor
people.”
Hillary argues: all we’ve ever done is try to help you people
From there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing so,
she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down answer,
that
community involvement in solving its own problems was something to be
tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the same vein in
addressing the present, mentioning “systemic issues of race and justice
that
go deeper than any particular law” without particularity. Clinton seemed at
a loss for anything to say until she seemed to stumble on the old
pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for the critic who objects to cops
killing black people:
What you’re doing, as activists and as people who are constantly raising
these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you for that, I
really do, because we can’t get change unless there’s constant pressure.
But
now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the pressure on
and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now, how are we gonna
do it? [emphasis in original]
Slick moves. Praise the victims for objecting to their victimhood.
Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it’s up to
them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the responsibility on
the victims to figure out what the victimizers should do differently. And
be
extra careful not to come close to even implying that the president or the
cops or anyone in between has any personal or institutional responsibility
for victimizing people in the first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions and
offered no solutions, but bloviated “sympathetically” to get to this:
We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work with
you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives matter, we need
to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do next?
Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics
As Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost tentatively
intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary Clinton talking to
him,
and such, but mass incarceration hasn’t worked, like so much else:
The truth is that there’s an extremely long history of unfortunate
government practices that don’t work, that particularly affect black people
and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the person who’s
in
the seat that you seek, actually addresses the anti-blackness current that
is America’s first drug – we’re in a meeting about drugs, right?
America’s first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like the
prison plantation system. It’s a similar thread, right? And until someone
takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in this country,
so
that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a founding problem in this
country, I don’t believe that there is going to be a solution....
Jones pointed out that there’s a lot of money in prisons, that the US
spends
more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout, Clinton was
keeping a sober face and going “Mmmm” as if agreeing to his points. She
seemed to agree when he said that African-American people were suffering
more than others. And Jones expressed the fear that the plantation evolving
into the prison system would evolve into new horrors unless something
changed. So he returned to Yancey’s original question in a different form:
You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in no
uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most, right? Now,
there may have been unintended consequences. But now that you understand
the
consequences, what in your heart has changed that’s going to change the
direction in this country? Like, what in you – like, not your platform, not
what you’re supposed to say – like,how do you actually feel that’s
different
than you did before? Like, what were the mistakes? And how can those
mistakes that you made be lessons for all of America for a moment of
reflection on how we treat black people in this country? [emphasis added]
How does Hillary Clinton “actually feel that’s different” from before?
This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton. Without
missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow, and says
something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the interruption and
the staffer even said, “I’m not interrupting,” but he’d given the candidate
another 20 seconds to frame her answer: “Well, obviously it’s a very
thoughtful question that deserves a thoughtful answer.”
Then Clinton vamped on her “commitment” to make things better, going into a
long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make things
better
for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that “there has to be a reckoning,”
but also a “positive vision.” Once you face the truth of racial history,
she
said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to do about it?
That’s what I’m trying to put together in a way that I can explain it and I
can sell it ¬– because in politics, you can’t explain it and you can’t sell
it, it stays on the shelf.
Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women’s rights,
gay
rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements had plans in
place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they could get laws
passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical, comparing the year-old
Black Lives Matter to other movements that took decades to evolve. Her
point
was that Black Lives Matter needed a plan, which is undeniable. The point
she didn’t make clear was that she had nothing to contribute. She covered
that absence by saying:
Your analysis is totally fair. It’s historically fair. It’s psychologically
fair. It’s economically fair. 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.” OK? That’s not enough, at least in my book.
That’s
not how I see politics.
So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of your
movement is so critical. But now all I’m suggesting is, even for us
sinners,
find some common ground on agendas that can make a difference right here
and
now in people’s lives. And that’s what I would love to, you know, have your
thoughts about, because that’s what I’m trying to figure out how to do….”
[emphasis added]
If the “analysis is totally fair,” why is Clinton’s response so pallid?
Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another way,
once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular goal, or
strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with their
victimization by the white culture she represents and helped shape in its
present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by then and Hillary
Clinton had answered no questions and had offered nothing. A staffer
interrupted, saying it was time to go.
But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the head
with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some indefinite time in
the future. With quiet patience he opened up the only meaningful dialogue
of
the encounter, as reported on Democracy NOW!:
JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that’s most important – and I stand
here in your space, and 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. Right?
HILLARY CLINTON: I’m not telling you; I’m just telling you to tell me.
JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been, a
white problem of violence. It’s not– there’s not much that we can do to
stop
the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout]
That is the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white
people from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
white people from killing them. White people need to decide that killing
black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the white power
structure. Clinton must know this, it’s so obvious. She said, “I understand
what you’re saying,” but she gave no evidence that she understands. And
when
Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut him off, her voice rising
peevishly, sarcastically echoing “respectfully” with no respect:
JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position, then I
will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with a very
real problem.
JULIUS JONES: That’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean. That’s not
what I mean.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
JULIUS JONES: But like, what I’m saying is you –what you just said was a
form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black Lives
Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come up with a
policy change.
HILLARY CLINTON: No, I’m not talking about—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….
In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn’t say “change every
heart.” Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she’s been saying
all
along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton puts the
responsibility for creating change on the people with the least power to
create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even Bill Clinton has
apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for increasing the mass
incarceration of black young men: “I signed a bill that made the problem
worse.”)
Ironically, Hillary Clinton’s nasty suggestion that “I will talk only to
white people” actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no intention
of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a start for Hillary
Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud, that mass
incarceration
for profit was a morally and economically corrupt idea and today I reject
it. Then today’s Hillary Clinton might have more credibility when she
expressed sympathy for people oppressed in part by her own past policies.
(A
sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie Haberman
appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.)
What happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man’s chest,
and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to change, it’s the
victims’ fault.
So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton has
been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so unaware of
racial reality as she presents herself. How can she possibly know at least
some of the things that need to be done to improve Black lives and all
lives? Her message – or really, her lack of message – is certainly what a
whole lot of white people want to hear.
In that respect, she’s little different from Scott Walker, who responded to
a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives Matter by calling
the question “ridiculous.” Walker added: “I’m here to talk to voters in New
Hampshire about things that matter.”
Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
doesn’t matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one could
say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of marginalizing the
marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives Matter is a conscious,
conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk. Black Lives Matter
describes
itself as:
… an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by the
same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In the year
leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all candidates for
Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black people. We embrace a
diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized network aiming to build the
leadership and power of black people….
Historically, all political parties have participated in the systematic
disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism, especially that
sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of healthy and thriving
Black life and well-being. Given that, we will continue to hold politicians
and political parties accountable for their policies and platforms. We will
also continue to demand the intentional dismantling of structural racism.
So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking about
that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle approach to
racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She seems to offer
more sympathy to victims of the American system, but it’s hard to see how
she’s offering a presidency that would deliver very much better results
than
any of theirs.
The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9 pages)
is
unequivocal in principle:
We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing the
four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans:
physical, political, legal and economic….
It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
seeing
intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and racist
terrorism by white supremacists.
Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking truth
to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and victim
blaming.
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America,
Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award
nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (photo: Charlie
Neibergall/AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
25 August 15
Black Lives Matter activists push edges that need pushing
fter listening awhile, Hillary Clinton pettishly told a quintet of
respectful Black Lives Matter activists that, “Yeah, well, respectfully, if
that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we
are going to deal with a very real problem.” More than being nonsensical,
she was actually trying to avoid the reality that white violence against
black people is an offense that only white people can stop. And she was
also
avoiding her own, very real role in promoting federal policies that have
made black lives matter less and less over the past two decades.
Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Daunasia Yancey, Julius Jones, and others of
Black Lives Matter began well enough on August 11 in Keene, New Hampshire,
after an early glitch. The Secret Service kept the activists out of the
room
where Clinton was speaking because the room was full (they heard her speak
with others in an overflow room). But then the Clinton campaign arranged
the
after-event meeting at which cordiality and calm were the rule.
This was in sharp contrast to the Social Security rally in Seattle on
August
9, where Bernie Sanders was interrupted by other Black Lives Matter
activists. There, two women took over the podium as the candidate began to
speak. They waved their arms and shouted, silencing Sanders. Bernie held
out
his hand to shake one of theirs. Then came the tip-off: no one took his
hand. As Sanders gave way, these Black Lives Matter women took over the
event and shut it down. On their website they had posted a comment echoing
Malcolm X in 1964, who had echoed Jean-Paul Sartre:
There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost.
We will ensure this by any means necessary.
After the event, Sanders issued a statement expressing his disappointment
“that two people disrupted a rally attended by thousands” in support of
Social Security. He added that “on criminal justice reform and the need to
fight racism, there is no other candidate who will fight harder than me.”
The next day, Sanders published his detailed racial justice platform.
The question for Hillary Clinton: Have you changed?
The echo of revolutionary rhetoric was absent from the 16-minute exchange
with Hillary Clinton in Keene (the full videotape was released August 19).
Both Yancey and Jones spoke quietly and coherently, but they were
substantively much more militant than the sloganeers of Seattle. After a
friendly-looking handshake and some shoulder-touching from the candidate,
Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter in Boston read from her iPhone as she
asked about the difference, if any, between the Hillary Clinton of twenty
years ago and the Hillary now:
… you and your family have been personally and politically responsible for
policies that have caused health and human services disasters in
impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international
war
on drugs that you championed as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State.
And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence
and
how you plan to reverse it?
For the next fifteen minutes, Clinton ignored the question and refused to
offer any plan to ameliorate the suffering caused by US drug policy, or any
other policy. Her body language was stiff, leaning back, “listening hard”
but appearing unreceptive. Everything she had to say was contained in her
empty and opaque first sentence in irrelevant response:
Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today.
Clinton never came close to addressing her own actions. She filibustered,
in
effect, for a minute or so about “concern” and “re-thinking” and “different
circumstances” and “looking at the world as it is today,” without actually
saying anything specific or meaningful. She was talking down to her
listener, almost lecturing, without content. Hillary Clinton seemed to be
suggesting that the policy she and her husband supported in the 1990s was
good then, but maybe, just maybe, it needed to be re-thought in some ways
now.
Yancey replied politely, with Clinton interrupting: “Yeah, and I would
offer
that it didn’t work then, either, and that those policies were actually
extensions of white supremacist violence against communities of color. And
so, I just think I want to hear a little bit about that, about the fact
that
actually while … those policies were being enacted, they were ripping apart
families … and actually causing death.
“Yeah, I’m not sure I agree with you,” Clinton replied. She’s not sure?
She’s had twenty years to think about race in America and she’s not sure
whether she helped or hurt? She running for president and she’s not sure
what she thinks is real? Next she said, “I’m not sure I disagree that any
kind of government action often has consequences,” which means nothing and
is unresponsive. That was Clinton’s choice, to be unresponsive, rather than
admit she’d been wrong twenty years ago, when “there was a very serious
crime wave that was impacting primarily communities of color and poor
people.”
Hillary argues: all we’ve ever done is try to help you people
From there, Clinton slid into a meandering but empty defense of Clinton
administration actions as a response to real community concerns. Doing so,
she evaded the reality that the Clinton response was a top-down answer,
that
community involvement in solving its own problems was something to be
tolerated as little as possible. She continued in the same vein in
addressing the present, mentioning “systemic issues of race and justice
that
go deeper than any particular law” without particularity. Clinton seemed at
a loss for anything to say until she seemed to stumble on the old
pat-on-the-head, patronizing flattery for the critic who objects to cops
killing black people:
What you’re doing, as activists and as people who are constantly raising
these issues, is really important. So I applaud and thank you for that, I
really do, because we can’t get change unless there’s constant pressure.
But
now the next step, so, you know – part of you need to keep the pressure on
and part of you need to help figure out what do we do now, how are we gonna
do it? [emphasis in original]
Slick moves. Praise the victims for objecting to their victimhood.
Compliment them on their efforts to end victimization. Tell them it’s up to
them to bring authority to heel, and to heal. And put the responsibility on
the victims to figure out what the victimizers should do differently. And
be
extra careful not to come close to even implying that the president or the
cops or anyone in between has any personal or institutional responsibility
for victimizing people in the first place. Good job, Hillary Clinton.
Six minutes into the empty rhetoric, Clinton has answered no questions and
offered no solutions, but bloviated “sympathetically” to get to this:
We need a whole comprehensive plan that I am more than happy to work with
you guys on, to try to figure out, OK, we know black lives matter, we need
to keep saying it so that people accept it, what do we do next?
Julius Jones tried to get Hillary Clinton to address specifics
As Clinton began to ramble on along this track, Julius Jones, founder of
Black Lives Matter in Worcester, Massachusetts, gently, almost tentatively
intervened to say how honored he was to have Hillary Clinton talking to
him,
and such, but mass incarceration hasn’t worked, like so much else:
The truth is that there’s an extremely long history of unfortunate
government practices that don’t work, that particularly affect black people
and black families. And until we, as a country, and then the person who’s
in
the seat that you seek, actually addresses the anti-blackness current that
is America’s first drug – we’re in a meeting about drugs, right?
America’s first drug is free black labor and turning black bodies into
profit, and the mass incarceration system mirrors an awful lot like the
prison plantation system. It’s a similar thread, right? And until someone
takes that message and speaks that truth to white people in this country,
so
that we can actually take on anti-blackness as a founding problem in this
country, I don’t believe that there is going to be a solution....
Jones pointed out that there’s a lot of money in prisons, that the US
spends
more money on prisons than it spends on schools. Throughout, Clinton was
keeping a sober face and going “Mmmm” as if agreeing to his points. She
seemed to agree when he said that African-American people were suffering
more than others. And Jones expressed the fear that the plantation evolving
into the prison system would evolve into new horrors unless something
changed. So he returned to Yancey’s original question in a different form:
You know, I genuinely want to know – you and your family have been, in no
uncertain way, partially responsible for this, more than most, right? Now,
there may have been unintended consequences. But now that you understand
the
consequences, what in your heart has changed that’s going to change the
direction in this country? Like, what in you – like, not your platform, not
what you’re supposed to say – like,how do you actually feel that’s
different
than you did before? Like, what were the mistakes? And how can those
mistakes that you made be lessons for all of America for a moment of
reflection on how we treat black people in this country? [emphasis added]
How does Hillary Clinton “actually feel that’s different” from before?
This is a potentially devastating moment for candidate Clinton. Without
missing a beat, a staff member interrupts, breaks the flow, and says
something about keeping on schedule. Jones objected to the interruption and
the staffer even said, “I’m not interrupting,” but he’d given the candidate
another 20 seconds to frame her answer: “Well, obviously it’s a very
thoughtful question that deserves a thoughtful answer.”
Then Clinton vamped on her “commitment” to make things better, going into a
long riff on how she had spent much of her life trying to make things
better
for kids, all kinds of kids. She agreed that “there has to be a reckoning,”
but also a “positive vision.” Once you face the truth of racial history,
she
said, then most people will say: so what am I supposed to do about it?
That’s what I’m trying to put together in a way that I can explain it and I
can sell it – because in politics, you can’t explain it and you can’t sell
it, it stays on the shelf.
Clinton then referred to other movements – civil rights, women’s rights,
gay
rights – and started a mini-lecture on how these movements had plans in
place so that, once they had raised consciousness, they could get laws
passed. Her spiel was self-servingly ahistorical, comparing the year-old
Black Lives Matter to other movements that took decades to evolve. Her
point
was that Black Lives Matter needed a plan, which is undeniable. The point
she didn’t make clear was that she had nothing to contribute. She covered
that absence by saying:
Your analysis is totally fair. It’s historically fair. It’s psychologically
fair. It’s economically fair. 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.” OK? That’s not enough, at least in my book.
That’s
not how I see politics.
So, the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of your
movement is so critical. But now all I’m suggesting is, even for us
sinners,
find some common ground on agendas that can make a difference right here
and
now in people’s lives. And that’s what I would love to, you know, have your
thoughts about, because that’s what I’m trying to figure out how to do….”
[emphasis added]
If the “analysis is totally fair,” why is Clinton’s response so pallid?
Clinton spent another minute or so making the same point in another way,
once again absolving herself of commitment to any particular goal, or
strategy, and once more laying it on the victims to deal with their
victimization by the white culture she represents and helped shape in its
present form. They had been talking about 14 minutes by then and Hillary
Clinton had answered no questions and had offered nothing. A staffer
interrupted, saying it was time to go.
But Julius Jones quietly refused to accept the patronizing pat on the head
with the implied promise of a bone to be tossed at some indefinite time in
the future. With quiet patience he opened up the only meaningful dialogue
of
the encounter, as reported on Democracy NOW!:
JULIUS JONES: Respectfully, the piece that’s most important – and I stand
here in your space, and 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. Right?
HILLARY CLINTON: I’m not telling you; I’m just telling you to tell me.
JULIUS JONES: What I mean to say is that this is, and has always been, a
white problem of violence. It’s not– there’s not much that we can do to
stop
the violence against us. [emphasis added throughout]
That is the moment of truth. Blacks are almost powerless to stop white
people from killing them. Blacks have always been almost powerless to stop
white people from killing them. White people need to decide that killing
black people is wrong and will no longer be allowed by the white power
structure. Clinton must know this, it’s so obvious. She said, “I understand
what you’re saying,” but she gave no evidence that she understands. And
when
Jones tried to pursue his argument, she cut him off, her voice rising
peevishly, sarcastically echoing “respectfully” with no respect:
JULIUS JONES: And then, we are also, respectfully, respectfully—
HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, respectfully, if that is your position, then I
will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with a very
real problem.
JULIUS JONES: That’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean. That’s not
what I mean.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well—
JULIUS JONES: But like, what I’m saying is you –what you just said was a
form of victim blaming.Right? You were saying that what the Black Lives
Matter movement … needs to do to change white hearts is to come up with a
policy change.
HILLARY CLINTON: No, I’m not talking about—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….
In the end, Clinton promised nothing – so you know what to expect
Clinton creates a straw man argument – Jones didn’t say “change every
heart.” Then she uses that falsehood to say again what she’s been saying
all
along, to say what Jones said she said. Once again Clinton puts the
responsibility for creating change on the people with the least power to
create change. This is nothing but bad faith. (Even Bill Clinton has
apologized, at the N.A.A.C.P. convention, for increasing the mass
incarceration of black young men: “I signed a bill that made the problem
worse.”)
Ironically, Hillary Clinton’s nasty suggestion that “I will talk only to
white people” actually implies a more relevant tactic. She has no intention
of doing anything like that, it seems. But it would be a start for Hillary
Clinton to talk to her 1990s self and say, out loud, that mass
incarceration
for profit was a morally and economically corrupt idea and today I reject
it. Then today’s Hillary Clinton might have more credibility when she
expressed sympathy for people oppressed in part by her own past policies.
(A
sometimes hilarious pro-Hillary version of this event by Maggie Haberman
appeared on page one of the August 20 New York Times.)
What happened in Keene was that she concluded with her voice reaching an
almost angry intensity, with her finger pointing at the black man’s chest,
and with her message reiterated that, if America fails to change, it’s the
victims’ fault.
So maybe she really is talking only to white people. Hillary Clinton has
been in public life for decades. How can she possibly be so unaware of
racial reality as she presents herself. How can she possibly know at least
some of the things that need to be done to improve Black lives and all
lives? Her message – or really, her lack of message – is certainly what a
whole lot of white people want to hear.
In that respect, she’s little different from Scott Walker, who responded to
a reporter asking him if he would meet with Black Lives Matter by calling
the question “ridiculous.” Walker added: “I’m here to talk to voters in New
Hampshire about things that matter.”
Does Black Lives Matter matter enough to enough people?
For Scott Walker, suggesting that Black Lives Matter is something that
doesn’t matter is designed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or one could
say that Walker continues the grand old tradition of marginalizing the
marginalized. And no wonder, since Black Lives Matter is a conscious,
conscientious threat to Walker and all his ilk. Black Lives Matter
describes
itself as:
… an ideological and political intervention; we are not controlled by the
same political machine we are attempting to hold accountable. In the year
leading up to the elections, we are committed to holding all candidates for
Office accountable to the needs and dreams of Black people. We embrace a
diversity of tactics. We are a decentralized network aiming to build the
leadership and power of black people….
Historically, all political parties have participated in the systematic
disenfranchisement of Black people. Anti-black racism, especially that
sanctioned by the state, has resulted in the loss of healthy and thriving
Black life and well-being. Given that, we will continue to hold politicians
and political parties accountable for their policies and platforms. We will
also continue to demand the intentional dismantling of structural racism.
So far, Hillary Clinton only pretends to be interested in thinking about
that. She has better rhetoric and a more flexible and subtle approach to
racial issues than Walker and his fellow Republicans. She seems to offer
more sympathy to victims of the American system, but it’s hard to see how
she’s offering a presidency that would deliver very much better results
than
any of theirs.
The official position of the Sanders campaign on racial justice (9 pages)
is
unequivocal in principle:
We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that
four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans:"Hillary argues: all we’ve ever done is try to help you peopl" e
physical, political, legal and economic….
It is an outrage that in these early years of the 21st century we are
seeing
intolerable acts of violence being perpetuated by police, and racist
terrorism by white supremacists.
Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with Black Lives Matter people speaking truth
to would-be power, offered nothing better than equivocation and victim
blaming.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America,
Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award
nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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