At a recent rally, protesters chastised Bill and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the 1994 crime bill. The bill is thought to be responsible for raising the incarceration numbers of black and Hispanics by increasing police patrol of inner cities.
The outspoken disapproval for this bill also shines a spotlight on the generational gap in the political beliefs of the African-American community. According to a Gallup poll, 58% of non-whites supported the crime bill, while 49% of whites did. Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett Price joined us on Boston Public Radio Monday for another edition of All Revved Up and to discuss the response to the bill and the Clinton’s history with African Americans.
“It was a crazy moment,” said Monroe about the late 80’s, the rise of crack, and the lead up to the crime bill. “As that was happening, the African-American community was also being hit by the aids epidemic. Ronald Reagan was president and wasn’t a friend of the African-American community. So, what happens here in the 80’s - we are still following a civil rights model, this whole notion of a politic of respectability.”
Monroe believes that these, among other reasons, were why African-American voters supported the bill. Keeping respectability would only help black America, not hinder it. Monroe says that the Black Lives Matters movement, “is a discourse debunking this politic of respectability. It is addressing the elitism that is the older model, the classicism that was in it, and also colorism.”
For Price, being palatable to white people became synonymous with this notion of respectability. He was quick to point out though that while Clinton may have the black vote, it does not mean that the majority of black people like her. “The Clinton’s have this unique sense of entitlement, they are offended that blacks don’t like them anymore. They are absolutely pissed.”
