So, now on DU, "Gang" = "black"??? How atrocious.

[Amimnoch]

So we now have a plethora of links to a young lady holding up a sign saying "bring them to heel".

And of course we have the oft repeated, hand selected clip:

First, Here's the WHOLE speech, not just the hand selected part:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4557866/hillary-clinton-criminal-justice-drug-policy-circa-1996


The speech is not about "black youth" as the clip, and all the people who like to espouse it like to claim. It was about gang activity.. period.

This whole argument is based off of the Suppressed correlative that gang must = black. Which is a very fallacious argument right out of the gate!



Do those who promote these videos not see just how racist it is to correlate "gang" = "black"???

Gang activity is not a "race". Take that chart above, it correlates very closely to income inequality, and poverty. Now THAT is a great case to make.

Also, it can be demonstrated that the policy DID reduce GANG (not black) activity:


Reduced GANG activity is a very worthwhile goal, because it reduces the number of people who prey, most often, on the others who are economically disadvantaged, which will also be disproportionately people of minority groups. The best answer, of course, are better social programs that reduces the disparity, and destroys poverty.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Thanks!

[Matariki]

2. Nice try.

[thereismore]

3. Nice try. nt

[Amimnoch]

4. So, you equate gang = black??

Are you sure you're supporting the correct political party?

[thereismore]

7. Wait. Are you saying Hillary = Democratic party? Yes I am sure I support the one true Democrat we

have running. Hillary ain't it.

[jeff47]

39. The "scientists" who came up with superpredators did.

You'd think someone as intelligent as Clinton and so concerned about the plight of minorities would bother to find out where the term came from.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Wow! Yes it does! The term was invented specifically to characterize gangs of black and brown

urban youth.

Princeton professor John DiIulio invented the myth of the “juvenile superpredator” in the early 1990s, forecasting that 270,000 of these menaces to society will be out on the streets by 2010 (City Journal, Spring/96). The “superpredator” derives from age-based explanations of crime posited by DiIulio in league with other conservative academics, including Northeastern University’s James Fox and UCLA’s James Wilson. Much of their work is the functional equivalent of racist speculation about criminality popularized by eugenicists a century ago. Demography is destiny, the theory goes, and today’s press and politicians employ it to keep the suburbs afraid of young men of color in the inner cities.

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/superscapegoating/

In The Coming of the Super-Predators, former Princeton University political science professor John DiIulio warned of an oncoming tsunami of adolescent super-predators, morally-impoverished youth who had grown up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults in abusive, violence-ridden, fatherless, Godless, and jobless These were kids who have absolutely no respect for human life and no sense of the future . . . . stone-cold. One year later, DiIulio projected that by the year 2010 there [would be] approximately 270,000 more juvenile super-predators on the streets than there were in In My Black Crime Problem, and Ours, Professor DiIulio predicted that the black crime rate, both black-on-black and black-on-white, is increasing, so that as many as half of these juvenile super-predators could be young black

http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1491:cognitivewar&catid=139&Itemid=155&showall=&limitstart=3

[bushisanidiot]

52. So you are putting someone else's words and putting them in Hillary Clinton's mouth

.

[Luminous Animal]

53. No. Hillary put them in her own mouth. It is no different than when the word "thugs" come

out of a white person's mouth in current time. It is racist dogwhistle.

[Aerows]

62. She opened her mouth and said them.

Too late to walk them back now. If she was smart enough to comment on the study, then she was certainly smart enough to have read it.

Or are we saying she just latched onto a study she didn't read yet commented authoritatively on it?

Which is it?

#WhichHillary

[Arazi]

6. 13% of gang members are White

so yes, your comments are technically true but I think it's fair to say HRC was not referring to that 13%



http://www.statisticbrain.com/gang-statistics/

[one_voice]

44. It appears your link doesn't consider..

skin heads, neo nazis or the KKK gangs. Juveniles are involved with all of those 'organizations' odd they left them off.

gang1
ɡaNG/
noun
noun: gang; plural noun: gangs

1.
an organized group of criminals.

[Arazi]

45. Here's the federal government statistics - 10% white

http://youth.gov/youth-topics/preventing-gang-involvement/federal-data

I chose the link that counted the MOST white gang members (13%) to rebut. I could have selected the federal link instead.

FWIW, I have no idea how many juvenile KKK, neonazis or skinheads there are but suffice it to say, I'd happily include them if I could find data on that.

The point remains that "super predator " has a context from that era and it wasn't referencing the KKK or neonazis

[one_voice]

49. I think it odd that they

didn't consider them gangs. period. that was my point.

Very few statistics consider those groups gangs. Maybe in the prison system they include them.

It's skewed against minorities. There are a lot of teen skin heads/neo nazis. to not include them is wrong. They should be considered gangs.

I wasn't arguing with you. Just pointing it out as strange.

As to your other point..

2 things.

1. I guess calling them psychopaths would have been better? Please don't act like there aren't those kids that kill puppies, rape old ladies, murder for hire etc. What would you call them? I think at this point anything she called them would have been wrong. We call rapist & murderers predators right? She said 'this is not just gangs of kids anymore'. There are kids that are beyond help. I can pull stories from google for you.

2. She was first lady. She had a certain loyalty to push her husband, the President, policies, new proposals etc. She had speech writers, she should have maybe read and rewritten that part. But again, this was done as first lady. Had she gone out and said, 'well this shit sucks' and he lost she's still be blamed for that. Pretty much a no win situation.

Bill Clinton was the President, not Hillary. She signed nothing into law. Yes, she campaigned for him as ALL first ladies do.

I think it's unfair to hand HIS presidency around her neck. What was she supposed to do? Other than change the wording of that speech.

That's my take, but I'm talking to other people. I'm not sure who I'm voting for so I'm getting input on both candidates for supporters of each and non supporters of each. I like differing opinions.

[Arazi]

50. HRC adds her time as FLOTUS to her "experience" resume

shes been pretty proud of her activism while she was in the White House.

She didn't have to take such a role but she did.

As for the "super predator" children, well that's what the context was - children. I'm guessing there aren't a significant number of child neonazis to be honest so I don't find it unusual they aren't included. I repeat, she didn't have to call them anything nor did she have to get involved. She chose to do this and owns those words

Lastly, the US government site doesn't break down the gangs so maybe they are included in those stats

[FrenchieCat]

8. In the Bay Area we had more Hispanic gangs....

that would tag everything at night...

and Asian Gangs out in SF.

Oakland suffered more from the ravages of Crack cocaine,
and smaller dealer car-jackings and drive byes

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. There are also white and Hispanic men who belong to the Bloods and Crips.

The bonds are based on geography and not color.

[Punkingal]

9. Take it up with the protester...she obviously thinks Hillary was talking about POC.

[Amimnoch]

11. Well, when it's being peddled that way with a very cherry picked clip...

It's not hard to imagine why.

[Spazito]

10. Good OP!

Gangs are gangs, made up by all races and ethnicities, to put forth gangs = blacks is appalling stereotyping, to say the least.

[Jefferson23]

13. Your complaint and disagreement is with the actual protester, do you understand that?

You can have a disagreement, of course, but asking that question here underscores
the protesters point.

[Amimnoch]

14. No, my complaint and disagreement is with those parties who are promulgating the cherry picked clip

and presenting it with the false equivalency.

[Jefferson23]

23. That would be you presuming the protester didn't know what their intentions were when

confronting Clinton. That Clinton's use of the term super-predator was even necessary
when speaking of gang violence, it was incendiary language and some black Americans
are calling her out on it...no cherry picking there.

[BillZBubb]

27. So, you've got a problem with the protester who quoted from that clip?

Are you saying she misunderstood Hillary or was distorting what was said?

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. Who is the most incarcerated group?

Who is most affected by mass incarceration, which Clinton helped create and promote? This isn't complicated.

[FrenchieCat]

17. They all participated....

Sanders voted for it
Bill signed it
Hillary promoted

as did many, many others...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/118742618

[Waiting For Everyman]

18. Nice try. He objected

and in the end voted for it for the Violence Against Women Act.

Bullshit disinformation, to deflect. Pathetic.

[retrowire]

36. excellent form wfe! quick as a whip. nt

[cyberswede]

16. "Inescapably, superpredator dread had a racial component..."

Inescapably, superpredator dread had a racial component. What the doomsayers focused on, in the main, were young male African-Americans. For Steven A. Drizin, a law professor at Northwestern University writing for The Huffington Post last September, the deep-seated fear that any black teenager in a hoodie must be up to no good was essentially what got Trayvon Martin killed in Florida two years ago.

from "When Youth Violence Spurred ‘Superpredator’ Fear"
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/us/politics/killing-on-bus-recalls-superpredator-threat-of-90s.html?_r=0

[FrenchieCat]

24. Oh definitely......

in the main....
but not all.

Many Black folks supporteded it,
because of who was getting killed by the violence,
and terrorized by the fears....
that is, it was other Black folks, not White folks.

[Prism]

48. You speak of it as if it's past tense

Come out of the Bubble into West Oakland lately?

It's not fun down here on the ground in the trenches.

[Arazi]

19. Obviously that's how Ashley Williams interpreted HRC's comment

why aren't you taking it up with Ashley Williams and "educating" her?

[Amimnoch]

20. Post 14.

[Arazi]

22. Post 6. Only 13% of gang members are White

http://www.statisticbrain.com/gang-statistics/

[tk2kewl]

21. pointing out racism != being racist

even if I am white.

[Cheese Sandwich]

25. Super-predator theory was racist pseudo science

Sorry for copy and paste but these are facts


For example Michelle Alexander has said

In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

source

And Ta-Nahesi Coates has said

Since the days of slavery, into the days of super-predators, and now the time of the Knockout Game, there has always been a strong need to believe that hordes of young black men will overrun the country in a fit of raping and pillaging. It's how we justify ourselves. Information can't compete with national myth.

source

Ben Jealous has said

The superpredator idea was this notion that a child at age six months could be such a sociopath as to be beyond redemption. And it’s a violation of theology, it’s a violation of basic psychology. It was never used, as far as I know, to describe anyone white. It was always used sort of to describe young black men as a mass. And it made life very tough for us. And it helped push in bills, quite frankly, that have led to the biggest spike in the incarceration of women that we have seen—of, typically, black women.

source

"As Ex-Theorist on Young 'Superpredators,' Bush Aide Has Regrets"

February 9, 2001

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 8— From his perch as the director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which he believes will help uplift many needy people but particularly the most troubled teenagers, John J. DiIulio Jr. conceded today that he wished he had never become the 1990's intellectual pillar for putting violent juveniles in prison and condemning them as ''superpredators.''

''If I knew then what I know now, I would have shouted for prevention of crimes,'' Mr. DiIulio said during an interview in the clubby University of Pennsylvania office that he is temporarily vacating to join the White House staff.

Instead, five years ago, Mr. DiIulio created a whole theory around the notion that ''a new generation of street criminals is upon us -- the youngest, biggest and baddest generation any society has ever known.''

''Based on all that we have witnessed, researched and heard from people who are close to the action,'' he wrote with two co-authors, ''here is what we believe: America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'superpredators' -- radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs and create serious communal disorders.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/us/as-ex-theorist-on-young-superpredators-bush-aide-has-regrets.html

[Avalux]

26. Those are some pretty graphics. Unfortunately, your re-framing of Hillary's words doesn't fly. n/t

[BillZBubb]

28. All you Hillary boosters can do is spin. Was the protester "re-framing" words too?

[Avalux]

31. I'm not a Hillary supporter.

The young woman who confronted Hillary is courageous and spoke the truth.

[notadmblnd]

29. Suddenly you've lost your hearing when it comes to Hillary and her dog whistles?

Somehow, I don't think so.

[NCTraveler]

30. Really isn't much here that shocks me anymore.

Marissa J is a racist. Yes, that has been posted here. POC voting for Clinton might be suffering from Stockholm. Yes, that has been posted here. BLM is ratfucking democrats. Yes, that has been posted here.

None hidden. All by well established posters.

[Bluenorthwest]

56. And you repeat it again. You exclude the fact that the Stockholm thread also attacked LGBT and you

leave out the part where I and several other Bernie supporters took the lead in telling that OP where he could stick it. The fact that you exploit that thread in this way, leaving out facts to sell a narrative that lies about me and others needs to be discussed. Why do you do that? You repeatedly claim that thread was just about POC when it was not, it was about African Americans and LGBT. Specifically. And who most loudly objected? Bernie supporting LGBT, that's who, but you refuse to say that. Why?

Your edited version of those events repeated without all of the facts makes your posts about that OP similar to that OP, a dishonest and exclusionary thing.

[NCTraveler]

63. You are so far off it's unreal. Have at it.

How many recommends did it have. And yes, it was outright bigotry as well.

I have repeatedly stated it is about bigotry and racism. Please stop with your dishonest line of attack here. Thanks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251727280#post1

[A Simple Game]

32. Of course Hillary didn't mean just Blacks, I have no doubts she meant African Americans,

Hispanics and Latinos too.

[Bad Thoughts]

33. Woof! Woof! (Dogwhistles) Woof! Woof! eom.

[Amimnoch]

34. Onus probandi

[Bad Thoughts]

37. Studies of the correspondence between gangs and minorities in media are prolific

Just google portrayal media gangs minorities .

[morningfog]

35. I take offense at calling any kids super predators.

I take offense at suggesting not any kids must be brought to heel.

I oppose mass incarceration.

In context, comments were directed at inner city youths in gangs, minorities. It was racist. Deal with it.

[liberal_at_heart]

40. Yes, it shows the Clintons are more interested in the school to prison pipeline than

in truly helping these kids get the help they need to become productive and successful. Kids are not super predators. They are a product of the broken systems we put in place.

[jeff47]

38. When you use Lee Atwater's dogwhistle, you don't get to pretend it isn't a dogwhistle.

Clinton is not the only person who used the term "superpredator".

[Hell Hath No Fury]

41. Those of us aware and active at the late 80s early 90s --

remember the larger context many of those statements were made under. The LA gang wars had been HUGE news, as were the beginnings of the east coast west coast hip hop rivalry that involved violence. N.W.A. had sung "Fuck Tha Police". Sister Soulja had been rebuked by Clinton. 2 Live Krew had gotten arrested in Florida on obscenity charges. Hip hop and rap were rising in American culture and it SCARED THE SHIT out of older white America. The crack epidemic had happened. "The Bell Curve" had been released, claiming blacks were intellectually inferior to whites. Limbaugh was on the radio saying the most hideous and inflammatory things about black Americans, fueling rising white fears.

So, for those of us there and listening, we knew exactly who "super-predator" and gangs and welfare reform were referring to and aimed at.

It sure as SHIT wasn't referring to towheaded white boys and it was aimed squarely at scared white people.

[tk2kewl]

42. remember "wilding?"

if you weren't already scared, the teevee sure wanted to try to make you feel scared

[Hell Hath No Fury]

58. Oh yeah, that was a classic --

and the Central park jogger and that Bernie guy in the subway who shot an "attacker" -- there was SERIOUS fear of black people, especially males, being stoked in the media.

[tk2kewl]

59. Bernard Goetz

[Hell Hath No Fury]

65. Yup, that's the guy. n/t

[beedle]

85. But we're forgetting

That there was just as much fear mongering of inner city KKK gangs ... Or so we are expected to believe.

[bettyellen]

73. In NYC, it was not about a rivalry between rappers, LOL. It was drug cartels hiring children.

This black vs white narrative is bullshit. The vast majority of people living in the rough areas were good people, and they clamored hard for increased police presence. POC don't love drug dealers more than white people do. They wanted the streets to be safer more than anyone.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

43. Anyone who lived through the '90s and '80s knows exactly who she was talking about.

Come on.

Politicians speak in code.

Thugs, urban youth, gangs, caddilac driving welfare queens.


By the way:

Gang activity is not a "race". Take that chart above, it correlates very closely to income inequality, and poverty. Now THAT is a great case to make.

This is why economic issues are also racial issues.

[forjusticethunders]

46. Is this how Hillary supporters do damage control?

Either you're the exact person that the Reagan/Bush/Clinton dogwhistles were aimed at, or you're just willfully distorting the long history of that phrase as a cudgel to beat young black men with (almost literally given how that kind of rhetoric was used to support a war against POC).

"Superpredators have nothing to do with black people, just like welfare queens and law and order". This is going to ANY lengths to deny that your candidate appealed to white racism in order to gain political capital. What irks me even more is that it's not like she stopped in 1996. Not all of us forgot the 2008 primary.

[DefenseLawyer]

47. Obviously she meant these guys

[bettyellen]

60. some people would claim fighting that gang was anti- Irish. or fighting the mafia......

so it goes with our melting pot.
for a very long time, the theory went "let those people kill each other", and look the other way. that was ALSO considered racist.

[DefenseLawyer]

70. Spoiler alert! That was NOT the gang she was talking about. n/t

[bettyellen]

71. I know a few people here think no one should ever go to jail, but there has never been a time when

the general public wanted violent people to take over the streets. and anytime there is a crime wave, at least on a local level it gets blamed on group or groups. once upon a time, they were Irish.

I am sort of stunned that anyone made the leap to black people, because in NYC it was heavily Latino immigrants in the 80s that ran the most violent gangs. And for the first time in history, we were finding lower grade school kids with guns working for drug dealers. Not HS and older, as it had been. Shit was crazy.
And other Latino groups not involved in the drug trade in NYC fucking hated them for it, and wanted them put away. the people who lived in the ghettos in the Bronx were clamoring for the NYPD to go after gangs, because they had been ignored for years. History matters.

[DefenseLawyer]

75. Tough on crime does not decrease crime

I know authoritarians will never be able to wrap their authoritarian minds around it, but warehousing individuals doesn't deter the next in line. Most of those violent street crimes aren't because someone is a psycho, it's because his livelihood is made outside the legal framework. Violence is his only method to address grievances. When's the last time you say two beer distributors shoot each other to death? 1933. And it happened a lot.

[bettyellen]

79. So she should have pushed for legalization of crack, gotcha.

I think when one lucrative illegal trade dries up, some people will go onto the next one. I don't know if there is any reasonable solution to all of that in a place like NYC where we have welcomed so many immigrants who will find it harder to be part of the straight economy. I am just giving the time and place context. It was never a black thing in NYC, and it was never just white people asking for the police to do something.

[bushisanidiot]

51. Thank you!

I am truly amazed at all of the racists that are claiming she was talking about black kids instead of kids in gangs.
She wrote "It Takes a Village". Her life's work has been to help children, women and families. She isn't out to get anyone's kids, especially the children of african americans who she has worked so closely with all of her life.

[Goblinmonger]

57. Were you alive in the 80s and 90s?

Do you know who Lee Atwater is? Do you not remember the sentencing differences between cocaine and crack.

EVERYBODY who know ANYTHING about the issue at the time knew what she meant. She didn't just stumble on that bullshit dog whistle by accident. Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining.

[bettyellen]

72. I was in the Bronx, and people were terrified of crack addicts because they were so volatile.

Crack was a whole different world for NYC. I am sorry, but people seem so ignorant about the extreme violence the trade and the addicts themselves caused.

[Goblinmonger]

74. So you are fine with different penalties for the same drug

when the lesser sentences go to the drug of primarily white users and greater sentences to the drug of primarily black users?

Or do you agree with the myth that was the superpredator?

I get it. Crack's was a problem. Then it was meth. Now we are back to heroine is now. The plans to through them all in jail worked SO well didn't it?

[bettyellen]

77. Residents in these areas were just as much for a law and order stance as anyone.

If you think it was all bigots getting bigots to do their bidding you are grossly over simplifying what went on just to score points. It was not black vs white as presented here on DU. That is bullshit they have picked up on the net.

Crack changed everything, heroin addicts had never been that violent. I do not agree that the penalty should be different for the same amount of drugs, nope.

But the city was completely unprepared for coping with the craziness that came from crack. The NYPD was supposed to basically just ignore stoned people and leave the dealers to the Narc squad.
It was not a great way to handle shit, but there was a lot less violence in the streets. Muggings were the big crime because of drugs before crack, robberies. But the 80s brought new turf wars for crack dealers who started literally arming children and mowing down innocent people in gun battles. Not teenagers, kids with guns became a thing. And people on crack were literally going nuts everywhere, no one wanted the job of arresting them for fear of what they would do if you tried to. IN NYC, you really had to be doing something more than being high to get arrested back then. It was a very different world.

[Bluenorthwest]

54. She meant black and brown as well. I remember the days very well, her verbiage was disgusting to me

and not even really a dog whistle so much as a flat out statement. She is talking about kids, who need to be brought to heel. Her word: kids. Those words do not match up, kids and words for training dogs.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

55. ...

(Note: Both campaigns are pretending to care about black people. Yes, BOTH! Many black people are well aware of how both campaigns are exploiting race and pretending to care about race/racism by using black surrogates. This is something that we notice and fully understand is happening.)

[Aerows]

61. So the young lady did not ask a fair question?

Yes or No?

[Amimnoch]

67. It is a fair question. It was the wrong venue imo.

Come on Aerows, I'm trying to keep it positive here, but think back to some of the very things you said back in in early August when the ladies from BLM in Seattle stormed the stage. Were you wrong then and right now? Bernie was supposed to answer those questions? Like I said, I'm trying to keep it clean and positive, so I won't link and quote, but do please consider how you felt then and maybe understand a little why some who are on the opposite side of the Primary now feel the same way you did then.

Do you feel Bernie is a Racist? I don't. Despite all of the cherry picked evidence to say otherwise, do you REALLY feel that Hillary's comments in that full video was specifically targeting a race? I honestly don't.

I do fault the entire subject matter of that speech, and the resulting crime bill, which Senator Sanders voted yes on, and Bill Clinton signed into law was a travesty of justice.

As I pointed out above, using real statistics, Blacks are not even an overwhelming majority of gangs in the US. What's more, using that graph alone is what REALLY masks the REAL problem:

Income inequality, and poverty, especially extreme poverty breeds crime. Not race, and not culture.

Look again at this chart that shows REAL gang statistics by race.


Now take a look at poverty statistics.. by race:


Very hard to ignore the REAL root cause of gang activity imo, and THAT is what I'm saying the REAL conversation needs to be about.

[Aerows]

68. "Things you said back in early August"

Citation, please.

[giftedgirl77]

64. Nope, they are the same group that thinks welfare=black.

[jeff47]

78. So who was Reagan referring to when he blasted "Welfare Queens"?

Reagan didn't literally say black, so clearly he meant white people!!!

[giftedgirl77]

80. Is Reagan a fuckin Dem or does he have anything at all to do with

this discussion?

[jeff47]

81. Dogwhistles are dogwhistles, no matter the party of the person using them.

"Superpredators" is a racially-loaded term, just like "Welfare Queens" is.

[giftedgirl77]

82. & this place is a whole caseload of them.

[jeff47]

83. Yet you are excusing one. (nt)

[giftedgirl77]

84. Lol, bullshit.

[rock]

66. Thanks Amimnoch!

It's amazing how many DUers will not except the truth when it berns!

[brooklynite]

69. I heard a speech last night by the Brooklyn District Attorney (African American)

I'd say his references to gangs were about the same.

[Kelvin Mace]

76. We didn't invent "dog whistle" politics

but we understand how it works.