Watch: Hillary Clinton gives frank talk to Black Lives Matter protestors
“I think there has to be a reckoning,’’ Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter activists from around Boston engaged in a particularly direct discussion about racial injustice in a private conversation last week.
Now, there’s video of that sometimes-tense exchange, via GOOD magazine.
“Look, I don’t believe you change hearts,’’ Clinton says in the video. “I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You’re not gonna change every heart. You’re not.’’
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The conversation occurred after several local Black Lives Matter activists attempted to interrupt and protest a speech by Clinton in Keene, New Hampshire last Tuesday. Black Lives Matter has successfully shut down speeches by other Democratic presidential candidates, including Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, pushing their movement to the forefront.
The Secret Service denied the protestors entry to Clinton’s event, saying the forum was at capacity. Instead, staffers shuttled the activists into a private room to meet with Clinton after her speech.
The video begins with Black Lives Matter’s Julius Jones, of Worcester, speaking to Clinton about America’s history of violence against black people. He then asks her how she feels about contributing to that history with her support of a 1994 crime bill that helped spawn the era of mass incarceration.
In Clinton’s response, which begins at 3:30 in the video, she agrees with Jones and recognizes the historical and current day injustices against black people. At the same time, she says her role as a politician is to craft policy that a majority can get behind and support.
“I think that there has to be a reckoning, I agree with that,’’ she says. “But I think there also has to be some positive vision and plan that you can move people toward.’’
Noting the racial disparities in low-level drug punishments, housing, and job opportunities, Clinton reiterates her politically focused argument point over a few minutes of conversation.
“You can get lip service from as many white people as you can pack into Yankee Stadium, and a million more like it,’’ Clinton says. “And they’re 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.’’
Later in their conversation, Jones says Clinton’s response was a form of “victim blaming’’ by saying Black Lives Matter should change their positions on issues.
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Clinton, though, interrupts, and sticks to her point that her job is to craft a broadly acceptable policy.
“You can keep the movement going, which you have started, and through it you may actually change some hearts,’’ she says. “But if that’s all that happens, we’ll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation.’’
Gallery: The 2016 presidential candidates.
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