Clinton faces #BlackLivesMatters
Two members of the Black Lives Matter movement tell Yahoo News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga that President Barack Obama and other presidents before him have failed the black community.
“Most every president has failed black people in this country because we are still in the conditions we are in, and nobody wants to go after the heart of anti-blackness in the United States,” said Julius Jones, a co-founder of the Worcester, Mass., chapter of Black Lives Matter. “All presidents get an F.”
Jones and Daunasia Yancey, the founder of the group’s Boston chapter, made headlines this week after releasing a video confronting Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. The pair questioned her past support for some of President Bill Clinton’s policies that, in their eyes, have led to mass incarceration.
“We were looking to hear a personal reflection from her on her involvement in policies that have targeted black communities in negative ways,” Yancey said. “Unfortunately that’s not what we heard; what we heard was a response about the policy and about moving forward.”
Yancey and Jones disagreed with Clinton’s approach to fighting the war on drugs, saying current policies have instead led to a “war on drug users.”
“It’s not a war on something, some idea,” Jones said. “It is actually a war on people, traditionally black and brown people … it was actually an assault on an entire community.”
Clinton fought back on many of the tactics Black Lives Matter uses to confront issues and candidates. In the released video, she said, “I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws … you change the way systems operate.”
“Hillary is not the first person to say you can’t change hearts,” Jones told Yahoo. “There’s a hatred there that we need to examine … and Hillary Clinton not wanting to look at that is a mistake.”
Clinton is not the only candidate facing criticism from the group: Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have also met opposition from regional organizers. Black Lives Matter activists said they will continue to confront both Democratic and GOP candidates in the coming months because they believe their efforts are working.
“Direct action wins,” said Yancey, citing Sanders’ new racial justice platform. “Confronting the candidates and whoever we confront is working.”
