Black Lives Matter activist Aurielle Lucier meets with Hillary Clinton
She gave her assessment of the meeting in an interview with CNN
Aurielle Marie Lucier, spokesperson for the Atlanta-based social justice organization #ItsBiggerThanYou, joined Black Lives Matter activists from around the nation for a meeting with Hillary Clinton last Friday in Washington D.C.
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?The coalition, which also included well-known activists DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie, met with Clinton for an hour to discuss her campaign’s resolve around issues of race and criminal justice affecting Black America.
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?In an appearance on CNN afterward, Lucier offered her assessment of the meeting with the Democratic front-runner.
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?”What I heard from Hillary Clinton was more of a listening ear and a willingness to sit down and listen,” she told CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin in the interview embedded below. “But we’re past the point where we need to just sit around and have conversations. We are in a time of immediate action. The matter is urgent. We are talking about a concept and a problem in America that is literally life or death. And so we need for there to be some radical and very poignant action behind these conversations. What I didn’t hear within this meeting was a definitive statement from Hillary Clinton about how we’re going to be very specific in tackling anti-blackness within policing and police policies in America.”
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?Clinton received some criticism in August when video footage of an impromptu meeting with other Black Lives Matter activists after an event in New Hampshire showed her effectively diverting responsibility back to the activists’ when asked how her heart has changed around issues like mass incarceration. Rather than focus on changing hearts, she told them at the time, they needed to focus on changing policies.
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?Last Friday’s meeting resulted from Clinton’s campaign extending an invitation to activists, the Business Insider reports. Some of the issues covered included demilitarization of local police departments, violence against transgender women of color, lowered sentencing for sex workers and marijuana possession, and an end to federal funding of private prisons.
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?While Clinton plans to release a platform addressing racial injustice, Lucier told CNN she is not ready to endorse any candidate for president until they earn her vote.
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