Denying discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Hooey –- silly talk/nonsense –- frequently has slimy characteristics and slime is slippery.

Former President Bill Clinton recently slipped on some silly talk when trying to dance around a slime trail oozing from his presidency during the 1990s.

This hooey moment came during Bill Clinton’s finger-wagging attempted smackdown of a Black Lives Matter activist who called-out Clinton during a campaign event for the devastating impact the 1994 federal anti-crime bill he sought and signed had on black communities nationwide.

Bill Clinton, when he dressed down the BLM activist with delight, defended his backing of that mass-incarceration accelerating/police abuse-aggravating measure. He also defended his wife Hillary for having tagged many black teens as “super predators” during her anti-crime lobbying as First Lady.

And Bill Clinton shoveled other such hooey as his assertion that BLM activists defend criminals and BLM activists are obstructionist n ways comparable to GOP members in Congress.

Bill Clinton’s defense of his 1994 crime bill came during a recent political campaign appearance for his wife Hilary in Philadelphia, PA, set to hold a critical Democratic primary between Hillary and Bernie Sanders next Tuesday, April 26. Philly is the same city where Bill Clinton in July 2015 had apologized for the damage done to blacks by that ’94 bill during a speech before the NAACP, America’s oldest civil rights organization.

During Bill Clinton’s 2015 NAACP speech he had said that 1994 bill “made the problem worse.” Yet, eight months later Clinton he is scolding BLM with the contention that his 1994 bill had actually improved conditions in black communities.

Clinton’s 2015 mea culpa to the NAACP and his indignant 2016 "mind your business kiddies" approach to BLM activists bristled with industrial strength hooey.

One significant reality that has fallen off the political radar screen is that Bill Clinton badly muffed addressing the racism that infects law enforcement –- from police brutality to bigoted Drug War enforcement –- during his presidency.

Civil rights leaders had begged Bill Clinton to address policy brutality throughout his presidency. Had he responded to those calls, abusive policing would have abated, thus minimizing that volatile issue years later that gave birth to the Black Lives Matters moment over a dozen years after the Clintons had left the White House.

Frustration with Bill Clinton’s inaction on police brutality forced African-American, Asian, Jewish and Latino leaders to hold a March 1999 press conference in Washington, DC. Those leaders requested action from Clinton on the ‘shameful epidemic’ of abusive policing. One proposed action was withholding federal funds from police departments with documented patterns of abuse...

For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINGTON, JR. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the uncompromised, collectively run, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/3132