Charlotte activist Ashley Williams disrupted a private event for Hillary Clinton donors last night, confronting Clinton about a comment made in 1996 during a discussion about a rise in crime rates, saying “we need to bring [at-risk youth] to heel.”
Williams and another Charlotte activist who will remain unnamed paid $500 each to get into the fundraiser, held at the private residence of an attorney in Charleston. Williams said some in attendance had paid as much as $10,000 to get in.
Once there, Williams waited until Clinton began addressing the small crowd about her record on race relations and then stood in front of her with a banner depicting the infamous quote. Clinton addressed Williams, stating that she had never been asked about the quote before, while Williams told her, “I am not a super predator,” referencing a Clinton quote from the same 1996 speech.
Williams was then escorted out of the building by Secret Service, which she said treated her respectfully and made a point of doing so, while donors in the house yelled for her to leave and cheered Clinton’s response.
Thanks to coverage from Huffington Post and an active response from Black Lives Matters supporters on Twitter and other social media, however, Williams got her message heard loud and clear.
“I’m happy with how the action went,” Williams said this morning over the phone from Charleston before heading back to Charlotte. “I’m happy that people are pressing Hillary on her record. She’s had 20 years to answer the questions I asked her last night.”
She was not impressed with Clinton’s reaction, stammering that she had never been confronted on this issue.
“I think that’s BS,” Williams said of Clinton’s response. “I’m not the first person to ask her. Black people and people affected by mass incarceration have been asking for a long time and it’s also interesting to see who hasn’t been asking. Media – not even left-wing media – nobody wants to go toe to toe with her. Last night was about making her go toe to toe with her own words and making her accountable to black people. I hope people will look into her record more closely and press her and all the other candidates on things that affect people of color; mostly mass incarceration.”
Williams, a recent graduate from UNC Charlotte, has been an active participant in the local Black Lives Matter movement. She figured heavily in Creative Loafing‘s reporting of the reaction to the mistrial of Randall Kerrick and participated in December protests on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus over the appointment of Margaret Spellings as UNC system president.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 1, 2016.
it’s a little hard to believe that NO ONE has asked Hillary about her super-predator comments. Another day, another lie. Hillary and her husband decimated the Black community. The 1994 crime bill, gave millions of public housing dollars to contractors to build new prisons. Hillary also supported welfare reform at the same time she support NAFTA, eliminating the safety net at the same time this country lost 600,000 factories. 50% of our children are unemployed, but Hillary has NO job creation bill, she doesn’t even support $15 minimum wage, although she herself earns $275,000 per hour and she doesn’t even believe that our children have a right to a college education.
Black VOTES matter to Hillary.
This is your dude, Spike Lee. And you know that I know that you know that the system is rigged! For too long we’ve given our votes to corporate puppets. Sold the okie doke. Ninety-nine percent of Americans were hurt by the Great Recession of 2008, and many are still recovering,” Lee said in the ad released Tuesday. “That’s why I am officially endorsing my brother, Bernie Sanders.”
I think “Now back to the issues” is the most powerful statement from Hillary on where she stands. She’s going to just ignore it altogether, huh? It’s not an issue for her. Wow.
Three things:
1- I’m not a Clinton supporter.
2- Here’s a link to the speech that the activist is referring to. You’ll see that the activist is misrepresenting Clinton’s speech on anti-gang policies by claiming that Clinton called black people “super-predators.” This is a stunt that people who want a gotcha moment will eat up. Unfortunately, that’s what the political process largely is.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4558907/mrs-…
3- The activist donated $500 to the Clinton campaign in order to execute a stunt.
4- CL should check the facts before they publish, otherwise the end up participating in the misrepresentation. It took me a few seconds to find the speech online.