Good on him for his national anthem protests. As the ESPN doco on OJ made clear, OJ turned his back on other black Americans in the hope he could transcend race and cement his celebrity. Given Kaepernick's current battles to prove himself as a starting QB, it's hardly the perfect time to make a stand on Black Lives Matter. That makes his stand even braver.
The way he equates Hillary and Trump is simplistic, however. If he can't see that Hillary has done a lot more for blacks in America than Trump, he hasn't done much research.
The criticism over the superpedator comment is interesting. It's like opening up a 20 year old time capsule. In the 80s and 90s, the crime rate was high and in particular the public was transfixed by drug cartel murders and gang violence including drive-by shootings - Cripps vs Bloods style. Beverly Hills Cops, Licence to Kill, General Noriega being toppled and shanghied to the US, Clear and Present Danger, the War on Drugs, Colombian cartels, Mafia drug trade were all part of a fertile breeding ground for the public's demand for tough law and order solutions. This was the era of Zero Tolerance policing in New York.
The law and order issue became a club used by Republicans to beat up Democrats. Democrats had to show they were tough on crime to satiate a public with a hunger for ever tougher penalties. Michael Dukakis was on the receiving end in the 1988 presidential campaign against Bush 41. Willie Horton, a black serving a jail term for murder, was released on a weekend furlough program while Dukakis was Governor of Massachusetts. Horton promptly raped a woman and went on the run. This became a major issue in the campaign, with a 'revolving doors' ad proving very effective.
In January 1992, it was Bill Clinton's turn to be put on the spot. A black man, Ricky Ray Rector, was on death row in Arkansas. He had killed a man in a nightclub and then agreed to surrender to a police officer before shooting him in the back and killing him. He turned the gun on himself and blew out part of his brain but survived. Death penalty opponents argued that he had become mentally retarded as a result. Indeed, after eating his last meal, he told the guards who would take him off for the lethal injection that he was going to leave his Pecan pie on his tray for later. Bill Clinton was Governor at the time and could have commuted the sentence on this ground but instead he returned to oversee the execution. This is credited with toughening up his image and paving the way for his election later that year. As I say, the public had an insatiable appetite for being tough on crime.
Fast forward to 1994 and the Violent Crime and Control Law Enforcement Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. This was a very popular piece of legislation at the time. It was written by now Vice President Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders voted for it. It contained a raft of measures, some good and some bad. Amongst the good was a ban on assault weapons including semi-automatic firearms. Unfortunately, George Dubya let that lapse in 2004. Additional classes of people banned from owning guns were added. New crimes were put on the books regarding hate, sex, and gang-related crimes and States were required to keep registers of sex offenders. On the other hand, the death penalty was expanded to include terrorism, drive-by shootings and deaths during carjackings amongst other offences. A 3-strikes life imprisonment sentence was introduced and the Act provided more funds for more jails.
As First Lady, Hillary Clinton supported the Bill and made her comments about needing to bring superpredators to heel, saying they killed and harmed children without empathy or remorse. The Crimes Bill has had had a major role in the rapid rise in the prison population in the US and no doubt a disproportionately heavy burden has been imposed on blacks as a result. In my view, the 3 strikes policy was an abomination. Recently, Obama has set about pardoning prisoners who were serving long sentences for non-violent drug offending. I think the "War on Drugs" has been a disaster.
Bill Clinton has since expressed his remorse for the deleterious rise in the incarceration rate and Hillary Clinton has also apologised for the superpredator rhetoric although she makes it clear she was referring to violent drug bosses.
To me, this unfortunate history needs to be seen as a product of its time. Being tough on crime then in the US was very much like being tough on people smugglers and 'queue jumpers' is now in Australia. No doubt future generations will be disgusted by the use of immigration detention. No doubt there are many politicians on both sides of the aisle who are also disgusted by it too but the sad fact is that the ALP has no chance of winning government unless it is as tough as the Liberals.
Hillary has certainly offset her minor role in that period by her work in many other areas which have been of benefit to the black community. She has embraced the black community's concerns over police shootings and the Flint poisonings. That's why the black community has rallied behind her. Oddly enough, Bernie Sanders did little to court black voters. Like Hillary, he copped his fair share of BLM protesters given his vote for the Crimes Bill. Unlike Hillary, though, he did little to embrace black voters other than saying they'd benefit from his promises to improve equality via economic reforms.
On the other hand, Trump merely offers a rerun of the Crimes Bill. He'll be tough on crime. He paints a dark picture of blacks living in the middle of a homicidal frenzy who are in desperate need of hard policing. He'll support stop and frisk to be applied on the basis of profiling and he'll throw his support behind the police. No wonder he's struggling to break the 2% barrier with black Americans in polls.
The way he equates Hillary and Trump is simplistic, however. If he can't see that Hillary has done a lot more for blacks in America than Trump, he hasn't done much research.
The criticism over the superpedator comment is interesting. It's like opening up a 20 year old time capsule. In the 80s and 90s, the crime rate was high and in particular the public was transfixed by drug cartel murders and gang violence including drive-by shootings - Cripps vs Bloods style. Beverly Hills Cops, Licence to Kill, General Noriega being toppled and shanghied to the US, Clear and Present Danger, the War on Drugs, Colombian cartels, Mafia drug trade were all part of a fertile breeding ground for the public's demand for tough law and order solutions. This was the era of Zero Tolerance policing in New York.
The law and order issue became a club used by Republicans to beat up Democrats. Democrats had to show they were tough on crime to satiate a public with a hunger for ever tougher penalties. Michael Dukakis was on the receiving end in the 1988 presidential campaign against Bush 41. Willie Horton, a black serving a jail term for murder, was released on a weekend furlough program while Dukakis was Governor of Massachusetts. Horton promptly raped a woman and went on the run. This became a major issue in the campaign, with a 'revolving doors' ad proving very effective.
In January 1992, it was Bill Clinton's turn to be put on the spot. A black man, Ricky Ray Rector, was on death row in Arkansas. He had killed a man in a nightclub and then agreed to surrender to a police officer before shooting him in the back and killing him. He turned the gun on himself and blew out part of his brain but survived. Death penalty opponents argued that he had become mentally retarded as a result. Indeed, after eating his last meal, he told the guards who would take him off for the lethal injection that he was going to leave his Pecan pie on his tray for later. Bill Clinton was Governor at the time and could have commuted the sentence on this ground but instead he returned to oversee the execution. This is credited with toughening up his image and paving the way for his election later that year. As I say, the public had an insatiable appetite for being tough on crime.
Fast forward to 1994 and the Violent Crime and Control Law Enforcement Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. This was a very popular piece of legislation at the time. It was written by now Vice President Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders voted for it. It contained a raft of measures, some good and some bad. Amongst the good was a ban on assault weapons including semi-automatic firearms. Unfortunately, George Dubya let that lapse in 2004. Additional classes of people banned from owning guns were added. New crimes were put on the books regarding hate, sex, and gang-related crimes and States were required to keep registers of sex offenders. On the other hand, the death penalty was expanded to include terrorism, drive-by shootings and deaths during carjackings amongst other offences. A 3-strikes life imprisonment sentence was introduced and the Act provided more funds for more jails.
As First Lady, Hillary Clinton supported the Bill and made her comments about needing to bring superpredators to heel, saying they killed and harmed children without empathy or remorse. The Crimes Bill has had had a major role in the rapid rise in the prison population in the US and no doubt a disproportionately heavy burden has been imposed on blacks as a result. In my view, the 3 strikes policy was an abomination. Recently, Obama has set about pardoning prisoners who were serving long sentences for non-violent drug offending. I think the "War on Drugs" has been a disaster.
Bill Clinton has since expressed his remorse for the deleterious rise in the incarceration rate and Hillary Clinton has also apologised for the superpredator rhetoric although she makes it clear she was referring to violent drug bosses.
To me, this unfortunate history needs to be seen as a product of its time. Being tough on crime then in the US was very much like being tough on people smugglers and 'queue jumpers' is now in Australia. No doubt future generations will be disgusted by the use of immigration detention. No doubt there are many politicians on both sides of the aisle who are also disgusted by it too but the sad fact is that the ALP has no chance of winning government unless it is as tough as the Liberals.
Hillary has certainly offset her minor role in that period by her work in many other areas which have been of benefit to the black community. She has embraced the black community's concerns over police shootings and the Flint poisonings. That's why the black community has rallied behind her. Oddly enough, Bernie Sanders did little to court black voters. Like Hillary, he copped his fair share of BLM protesters given his vote for the Crimes Bill. Unlike Hillary, though, he did little to embrace black voters other than saying they'd benefit from his promises to improve equality via economic reforms.
On the other hand, Trump merely offers a rerun of the Crimes Bill. He'll be tough on crime. He paints a dark picture of blacks living in the middle of a homicidal frenzy who are in desperate need of hard policing. He'll support stop and frisk to be applied on the basis of profiling and he'll throw his support behind the police. No wonder he's struggling to break the 2% barrier with black Americans in polls.
