After Black Lives Matter activists failed to make it into the main room of a Clinton campaign event in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton met with the activists for about 15 minutes afterward. Gabriel Debenedetti
reports on what they asked:
The group – affiliated with Black Lives Matter organizations in the Boston area — told reporters afterwards that they asked Clinton about “her and her family’s history with the war on drugs both at home and abroad, and how she felt about her involvement in that violence that has been perpetuated, especially against communities of color and against black folks,” said Daunasia Yancey.
The takeaway:
Clinton’s response, which they declined to detail, was not a reflection on “her part in perpetuating white supremacist violence,” Yancey said. “I heard a reflection on failed policy.”
And
another from journalist Jamil Smith, who originally
broke the story:
"The place we ended up arriving with her, in part, was a personal discussion about what we think would work,” said Julius Jones, founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Worcester, Massachusetts, and one of the activists who attended the meeting. "For her, she was saying that the policies that they tried to implement in the eighties and nineties just didn't work, and they had the unfortunate consequence of being enacted on black or brown bodies more than anyone else.” The Clinton campaign told the New Republic that they are preparing a statement about today's meeting.
Clinton, according to Jones, felt as if the system would be more easily changed structurally, through policy change–rather than tackling anti-blackness in white people through widespread cultural change. "She said that she didn't feel that you were going to be able to change hearts; that you can change systems, and then maybe you can change hearts.”
The activists recorded the exchange and said they plan to make it public. No reporters were present.
The group had originally hoped to make it into the main event and disrupt Clinton, but they reportedly arrived at the venue after Clinton and it's standard Secret Service practice to stop admitting people once Clinton enters the room. The activists were instead allowed into an overflow room to screen the event.
Meeting with the activists was a good move by Clinton and an acknowledgment of the growing power of the BLM movement. It's not going away and the Democratic candidates are all working to find ways of addressing the issues the movement is raising.