Clinton
tells Black Lives Matter activists to change policies, not hearts
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[August 19, 2015]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a sometimes tense private
meeting last week with five "Black Lives Matter" activists, urging them
to find a way to change policies because "I don't believe you change
hearts."
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In a video of the meeting released by the group, Clinton
acknowledged the crime and incarceration laws pursued under her
husband, former President Bill Clinton, had not always succeeded.
But she said the only way to relieve the effects of deep-seated
racism in the United States was to change government policies.
"Look, I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws,
you change allocation of resources, you change the way the systems
operate," Clinton told the group during an approximately 15-minute
meeting after an Aug. 11 campaign event in Keene, New Hampshire.
(http://bit.ly/1NiuzuU)
"You're going to have to come together as a movement and say,
'Here's what we want done about it,'" Clinton said. "Because you can
get lip service from as many white people as you can pack into
Yankee Stadium."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Aug/19/images/ads/current/Applegate_exc_sda_daily_030415.png) The Democratic front-runner rejected an accusation that she and her
husband were "politically and personally" responsible during the
Clinton administration for policies that were disastrous to minority
communities.
"I do think there was a different set of concerns back in the 1980s
and early 1990s, and now I believe that we have to look at the world
as it is today and try to figure out what will work now," she said.
At one point, one of the activists told Clinton, "I say this as
respectfully as I can, but you don't tell black people what we need
to do."
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The Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of the July 2013
acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Florida shooting death of
African-American teen Trayvon Martin, has become an active presence
at some campaign events.
Protesters interrupted an Aug. 8 campaign stop in Seattle by
Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont.
The activists attended Clinton's campaign event as well, but it was
full when they arrived and they watched from an overflow room.
Clinton met privately with the group after the event.
"This discussion was one of many that the campaign will continue to
have with a wide array of stakeholders in order to build on Hillary
Clinton's policy proposals to help reform our criminal justice
system and achieve racial justice," her campaign said in a
statement.
(Reporting by John Whitesides and Amanda Becker; Editing by Alan
Crosby)
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