Roland Martin Grills Bill Clinton #BlackLivesMatter Protesters: What Do You Want the Clintons to Do?

[MSMITH33156]

5. That interview was embarrassing

and this was the problem with Occupy Wall Street.

There is a real problem with the criminal justice system and the way that African Americans are mistreated by the system.

But just saying "we have a problem, we have a problem" and not offering coherent solutions or having some idea of what you'd like to see happen means that nothing comes of it.

They're pissed off about a bill that is 20 years old. But when he asks what they would like to happen, it was crickets. He had to ask repeatedly while they couldn't answer, finally they said apologize. Which, never mind that Bill and Hillary have said they were wrong, that's not even important.

You know what an apology does? Absolutely nothing to solve the real problem.

Protesting presidential candidates will get you attention, it won't get you reform. And the biggest mistake several of these BLM protesters made was aligning themselves with Bernie Sanders who (1) voted for the damn bill they're complaining about and (2) makes them into a political football.

They need to be candidate agnostic. They need to come up with a platform. I went to their official web site, look at this:

http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/

There's no substance here. Saying you're committed to equality 20 different ways doesn't do a damn thing. You can change some hearts for sure, but if you want societal change, you need to change LAWS. Where is their plan to change laws?

And, here's the real challenge. This is a state more than federal challenge. Yes the Crime Bill they are complaining about was federal, we have 2.2 million people in prison, only 200k are actually in federal prison. Every single other one has a local or state law at issue, which means you have to fight it on that level.

If you want to do that, you cannot do it by aligning with Bernie Sanders. Good luck doing that than going into Texas and getting reform there.

They need a platform, bite sized, point-by-point of the reforms they want. Specifics. And then you get that into the mainstream, you get the candidates to agree or disagree with it. Their goals are so lofty and obvious right now, even Trump can say, "sure I'm committed to a fair justice system." Who isn't?

The lesson of Civil Rights is you have to drag the country, kicking and screaming to change. And you do that with laws, not with attention grabbing stunts WITHOUT the substance behind it. You need both. But much like with Occupy Wall Street, they seem to only be able to disrupt, and not be able to translate the attention the disruption gains into any salient change.

It's so frustrating because these are good people protesting a grave injustice that they shouldn't have to deal with. But this goes nowhere until they actually come up with solutions.