[blind-democracy] Re: Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White People ...'

  • From: Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:13:22 -0400

When the movie theater owner threw me and my guide dog out of the movie
theater in Westbury back in the early 80's, he said, "I know all about you
people".

Miriam

-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 12:37 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Hillary Clinton: 'I Will Talk Only to White
People ...'

"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:


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
..> 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.
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"Hillary argues: all we’ve ever done is try to help you peopl" e


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