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Clinton never said “black” super predators. > "But we also have to have an organized effort against gangs," Hillary Clinton said in a C-SPAN video clip. "Just

Clinton never said “black” super predators. > "But we also have to have an organized effort against gangs," Hillary Clinton said in a C-SPAN video clip. "Just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob. We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy.

btilly 4y ago
Fair point. She didn't use those words. But everyone understood her to mean that. Which is why https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-priebus/did-hillary-clinton-call-african-american-youth-su/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-pri... calls this claim mostly true.
- sarchertech 4y ago
  Regardless of what she meant, my issue was with putting it in quotes. I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously. Even if many people (including herself) tended to think of gang members as young and Black.
  - nyokodo 4y ago
    > I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously . Even if many people (including herself) tended to think of gang members as young and Black. If she thought gang members were predominantly young and black and she talked about combating them like the mob, labeling them as super predators with no empathy or conscience etc… what do you think she was consciously imagining? This is a weak defense if ever there was one.
    - sarchertech 4y ago
      She probably thought something like “Gang members are bad because they kill people. Let’s stop gang members from killing people.” Without thinking through the the nuances of the long history of racial oppression that led the gang members to become criminals in the first place. The same way that people who were combating the mob didn’t consider the history of oppression that lead to the creation of the Sicilian mafia. I would argue that in this situation she was shortsighted and yes lacked empathy. But I don’t think there was any conscious racial animus there the way quoting “black super predators” makes it sound. I doubt she considered the racial component at all.
      - btilly 4y ago
        The essay she got the phrase from is https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-coming-of-the-super-predators/article/8160 https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weekly.... Associating the phrase "predator" specifically with black and hispanic criminals was already well-established in politics. Particularly because of the the Willie Horton ad from 1988. I absolutely believed both then and now that she intended it as a racial comment. And her only reasonable defense would have been, "...but not ALL blacks..." However the policies that her husband pursued lead to the largest increase in blacks behind bars in history to that point, and had the effect of devastating black communities. So even that excuse would be thin. (Note, Bill Clinton is also the one who flew home during the 1992 primary campaign to witness the execution of a mentally retarded black man. About which he said, "Nobody can accuse me of being soft on crime.")
        sarchertech 4y ago
        I’m not going to argue that it’s impossible that she was using the term as a dog whistle. But people have been referring to criminals of every race as predators well before 1988 and they have continued doing to this day. If you look at usage of the word predator, my bet is it is associated with generic criminals (particularly sexual criminals) far more frequently than it’s deliberately used as a dog whistle. When Clinton made this speech, it aired on C-Span and would have been forgotten but for opposition research. I think it’s very unlikely, she deliberately chose the word to send out a dog whistle to racists who happen to be watching the ostensibly liberal President’s wife on C-Span. I think the more likely explanation is that a speech writer thought it sounded punchy because they’d heard it being used, and she didn’t think twice about using the term to refer to gang members. That doesn’t mean that many uses of the word don’t have racist meanings. Or that it’s impossible that Clinton used it with racists invent. It does mean that it’s a big logical leap to say: Some racists refer to young Black criminals as predators, and Hilary Clinton uses the word to refer the superset of young gang members, therefore Hilary Clinton deliberately and with racist intent used the word specifically to refer to young Black gang members. Particularly to the level of confidence that you’re quoting her as saying “black super predators”. Notably Bill Clinton is never on record as having used the word, and he is the one who met with the guy who coined it. If he inteneded to co-opt the word to use as a racist dog whistle, why did he never use it himself? And why did his wife only use it the one time?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nsajko 4y ago
  Your "black super-predators" comment is unfair to the degree of being slanderous of Clinton, in my IANAL opinion. Going by the information presented in the Politifact article, the final "mostly true" evaluation is garbage. This bit makes more sense: > The full context of this incident does link children and superpredators, but nowhere in the speech does she directly label African-American youth this way. Furthermore, the whole point of mentioning the Clinton factoid seems to have been to show that Clinton had a racist slip; but the reasoning here seems like it's underlied by the racist premise that all street gang members all black, so "of course that a gangbanger would be black".
  - btilly 4y ago
    Historical context that I'm old enough to personally remember. The phrase "predator" to refer to black and hispanic gang members was very well established racist dog whistle back in the days of Reagan and Bush Sr. The phrase "superpredator" was built on the existing term about a year before Clinton used it. You can read the original essay reprinted at https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-coming-of-the-super-predators/article/8160 https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weekly.... The author of that essay later reported that the Clinton's met with him to talk specifically about this article. There is no question that this article is where she got the phrase from. It absolutely was a racist term. Everyone at the time knew it, including Hillary Clinton. It is only through lacking that context that anyone today can argue that it was anything else. This is my IANAL opinion. But I'd be willing to stand by it in court.
tunesmith 4y ago
What's funny is that this feels somehow related to when she later referred to the "basket of deplorables". Like in some way she tried to carve out room for common ground in a group of people she disagreed with, by slicing them into two groups, one of which could be disregarded in her view. And in both cases it backfired.
amanaplanacanal 4y ago
She has never been a progressive, and at the time that happened democrats were moving firmly to the right to try to capture some of Reagan’s base.
- btilly 4y ago
  I said "relative progressive" because, relative to Republicans and the general public, she was. And she later did a lot to try to claim a progressive mantle. Particularly when she ran for President. But yes, Bill Clinton got elected in part by "moving to the center". Which was moving to the right relative to the Democratic base. Given that the Democratic base as moved sharply left since, comparing past and present positions can be quite jarring.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    If by “left” you mean economically. I don’t see it. They have certainly moved to embrace racial and sexual minorities since then though.
    - btilly 4y ago
      First of all left vs right has always been a spectrum of issues, with economics only being one. That said, the move leftward has been much sharper on race and sexual minorities. But not non-existent for economics. Particularly when it comes to social justice. For example, Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that pushes people off of welfare and into work, or simply dumps them into severe policy. This disproportionately made single mothers and blacks worse off. His position was slightly to the right of most Democrats at the time. But the Democratic party today is strongly for increased access to a wide variety of assistance programs for those in need. And programs that disproportionately hit the economically needy would not be supported by major Democrats today.

btilly 4y ago

Fair point. She didn't use those words. But everyone understood her to mean that. Which is why https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-priebus/did-hillary-clinton-call-african-american-youth-su/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/reince-pri... calls this claim mostly true.

sarchertech 4y ago
Regardless of what she meant, my issue was with putting it in quotes. I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously. Even if many people (including herself) tended to think of gang members as young and Black.
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > I also doubt she was targeting black kids consciously . Even if many people (including herself) tended to think of gang members as young and Black. If she thought gang members were predominantly young and black and she talked about combating them like the mob, labeling them as super predators with no empathy or conscience etc… what do you think she was consciously imagining? This is a weak defense if ever there was one.
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    She probably thought something like “Gang members are bad because they kill people. Let’s stop gang members from killing people.” Without thinking through the the nuances of the long history of racial oppression that led the gang members to become criminals in the first place. The same way that people who were combating the mob didn’t consider the history of oppression that lead to the creation of the Sicilian mafia. I would argue that in this situation she was shortsighted and yes lacked empathy. But I don’t think there was any conscious racial animus there the way quoting “black super predators” makes it sound. I doubt she considered the racial component at all.
    - btilly 4y ago
      The essay she got the phrase from is https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-coming-of-the-super-predators/article/8160 https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weekly.... Associating the phrase "predator" specifically with black and hispanic criminals was already well-established in politics. Particularly because of the the Willie Horton ad from 1988. I absolutely believed both then and now that she intended it as a racial comment. And her only reasonable defense would have been, "...but not ALL blacks..." However the policies that her husband pursued lead to the largest increase in blacks behind bars in history to that point, and had the effect of devastating black communities. So even that excuse would be thin. (Note, Bill Clinton is also the one who flew home during the 1992 primary campaign to witness the execution of a mentally retarded black man. About which he said, "Nobody can accuse me of being soft on crime.")
      - sarchertech 4y ago
        I’m not going to argue that it’s impossible that she was using the term as a dog whistle. But people have been referring to criminals of every race as predators well before 1988 and they have continued doing to this day. If you look at usage of the word predator, my bet is it is associated with generic criminals (particularly sexual criminals) far more frequently than it’s deliberately used as a dog whistle. When Clinton made this speech, it aired on C-Span and would have been forgotten but for opposition research. I think it’s very unlikely, she deliberately chose the word to send out a dog whistle to racists who happen to be watching the ostensibly liberal President’s wife on C-Span. I think the more likely explanation is that a speech writer thought it sounded punchy because they’d heard it being used, and she didn’t think twice about using the term to refer to gang members. That doesn’t mean that many uses of the word don’t have racist meanings. Or that it’s impossible that Clinton used it with racists invent. It does mean that it’s a big logical leap to say: Some racists refer to young Black criminals as predators, and Hilary Clinton uses the word to refer the superset of young gang members, therefore Hilary Clinton deliberately and with racist intent used the word specifically to refer to young Black gang members. Particularly to the level of confidence that you’re quoting her as saying “black super predators”. Notably Bill Clinton is never on record as having used the word, and he is the one who met with the guy who coined it. If he inteneded to co-opt the word to use as a racist dog whistle, why did he never use it himself? And why did his wife only use it the one time?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nsajko 4y ago
Your "black super-predators" comment is unfair to the degree of being slanderous of Clinton, in my IANAL opinion. Going by the information presented in the Politifact article, the final "mostly true" evaluation is garbage. This bit makes more sense: > The full context of this incident does link children and superpredators, but nowhere in the speech does she directly label African-American youth this way. Furthermore, the whole point of mentioning the Clinton factoid seems to have been to show that Clinton had a racist slip; but the reasoning here seems like it's underlied by the racist premise that all street gang members all black, so "of course that a gangbanger would be black".
- btilly 4y ago
  Historical context that I'm old enough to personally remember. The phrase "predator" to refer to black and hispanic gang members was very well established racist dog whistle back in the days of Reagan and Bush Sr. The phrase "superpredator" was built on the existing term about a year before Clinton used it. You can read the original essay reprinted at https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-coming-of-the-super-predators/article/8160 https://web.archive.org/web/20160307234335/http://www.weekly.... The author of that essay later reported that the Clinton's met with him to talk specifically about this article. There is no question that this article is where she got the phrase from. It absolutely was a racist term. Everyone at the time knew it, including Hillary Clinton. It is only through lacking that context that anyone today can argue that it was anything else. This is my IANAL opinion. But I'd be willing to stand by it in court.

tunesmith 4y ago

What's funny is that this feels somehow related to when she later referred to the "basket of deplorables". Like in some way she tried to carve out room for common ground in a group of people she disagreed with, by slicing them into two groups, one of which could be disregarded in her view. And in both cases it backfired.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

She has never been a progressive, and at the time that happened democrats were moving firmly to the right to try to capture some of Reagan’s base.

btilly 4y ago
I said "relative progressive" because, relative to Republicans and the general public, she was. And she later did a lot to try to claim a progressive mantle. Particularly when she ran for President. But yes, Bill Clinton got elected in part by "moving to the center". Which was moving to the right relative to the Democratic base. Given that the Democratic base as moved sharply left since, comparing past and present positions can be quite jarring.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  If by “left” you mean economically. I don’t see it. They have certainly moved to embrace racial and sexual minorities since then though.
  - btilly 4y ago
    First of all left vs right has always been a spectrum of issues, with economics only being one. That said, the move leftward has been much sharper on race and sexual minorities. But not non-existent for economics. Particularly when it comes to social justice. For example, Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that pushes people off of welfare and into work, or simply dumps them into severe policy. This disproportionately made single mothers and blacks worse off. His position was slightly to the right of most Democrats at the time. But the Democratic party today is strongly for increased access to a wide variety of assistance programs for those in need. And programs that disproportionately hit the economically needy would not be supported by major Democrats today.