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From Univ of Dayton:Female Black Professor Explains Hillary, African Americans, Myth of Bill Clinton
2008 Presidential Election, Race and Racism
Professor Vernellia Randall
Speaking Truth to Power!
Hillary, African Americans & The Myth of Bill Clinton
there is myth around Bill Clinton concerning his love affair with Black America. There was never a love affair and if one existed, it was one-sided.
African Americans loved him while he fervently worked to make the lives of working class and poor African Americans a living hell. However, it was not just the lives of the descendants of the four million slaves who were affected by Clinton's wrath.
Africans, West Indians, Latin Americans, and South Americans who were also a part of the African diaspora in this country were also affected—citizen, non-citizen, documented, and undocumented. Clinton's reach was long and he reached out and touched the lives of millions of Africans on the continent. Unfortunately, the effects of his negative actions are still with them as I write this blog.
Let me begin to unravel and dismantle the myth that Bill Clinton was good for and to African Americans by addressing his domestic record. First, an analysis of welfare reform is needed because not only did it adversely affect a lot of African Americans, it had a disproportionate negative effect on African American women who according to lawmakers and the media, would be the main beneficiaries of welfare reform. I clearly remember the day in 1996 when Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act on the White House lawn because the scenario was so racist.
Clinton smiled widely as he signed the legislation, took questions from the media, and praised Congress for passing such an important and historic piece of legislation while two large African American women stood by his side. Although white women made up a larger share of the welfare rolls, the media, politicians, and white Americans were convinced that African American women followed by Latinas were the main recipients of welfare and this merely reinforced the stereotype. Therefore, the legislation was overdue; these women needed to stop having children out of wedlock for the taxpayer to support and they needed to join the workforce. Clinton's policy was a long way from the Great Society and War on Poverty programs associated with President Lyndon Johnson who according to Hillary Clinton was responsible for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Clinton's policy was workfare and not welfare.
The welfare reform legislation was part and parcel of a neo-liberal economic agenda that called for a retrenchment of the state from its social welfare responsibilities. We often read, write, and talk about the rolling back of the African state as a result of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) superimposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, but we do not situate these same policies within the context of the United States and its poor and working classes. The federal government has offloaded and downloaded a number of social responsibilities to the states including some very important welfare programs as a result of the 1996 welfare reform legislation.
The legislation called for a drastic reduction in the welfare rolls and states were responsible for kicking off as many people as they could through their efforts to move people from welfare to workfare. African American women and others on welfare now had the options of working, attending school, or getting off welfare and they were given time limits depending on where they lived. Some women were given more time if they had children under a certain age or they suffered from disabilities and illnesses, but the bottom line was that the cycle of welfare dependency would no longer pass from one generation to the next. The results were mixed. There were some African American women who received educational and vocational training that allowed them to find gainful employment and to take care of themselves and their families. However, many women were not so fortunate. They were trapped in a never-ending cycle of dead-end, low paying jobs often in the service sector away from their places of residence with very few benefits including health and childcare.
They ended up in a lose-lose situation. Once they began to work and to earn an income, they ran the risk of losing some of their benefits. At the same time, the jobs did not pay enough to cover transportation to work as they jobs were often located in suburban areas away from urban centers. If the women resided in rural or small towns, the jobs often required having a car and some women could not afford to purchase and maintain one. To makes matters worst, under the new legislation, women did not qualify for some benefits once they began to earn a certain income. Finally, some women were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea concerning childcare. They were forced to work or to attend school, but some of them did not have adequate childcare or they could not afford to pay for it. Women traveled long distances to work at this minimum wage jobs with few or no benefits while their children were often left alone, with older siblings, neighbors, or relatives. These jobs were not always nine to five. These were the hospital, nursing home, restaurant, Wal-Mart jobs where women often worked the night and overnight shifts.
snip
Although African Americans cannot be deported, they can be permanently removed from society or at least for long periods of time through the court system and Clinton saw to that with the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes, and truth in sentencing—all interconnected and intertwined with the war on crime and drugs. These also coincided with the reduction of the state in welfare expenditures and in increase in state and local funding for the construction of new prisons that fueled the prison industrial complex.
There may not have been money for public schools, job training program, healthcare, and food, but there was money for prisons and jails. Again, these are associated with Reagan-Bush presidencies, but they were carried over and made harsher under the Clinton Administration. As the crack epidemic heated up in many African American communities throughout the United States, the arrests, convictions, and sentences for drug-related offenses increased. Under new drug sentencing laws, judges now had little discretion in the sentencing of drug offenders.
The rates of African American men and women who were charged, convicted, and sentenced for drug offenses increased under the Clinton Administration as judges were given little discretion in sentencing due to strict, statutory federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences for crimes that were committed three times. Similar to the situation of deportees, community ties and family relations should have been helpful in obtaining a reduced sentence or keeping the person out of prison. This was not the case even for women who were pregnant, had small children, or were responsible for other family members. States also adopted truth in sentencing (TIS) guidelines that gave way to the construction of more prisons. Prior to the enactment of TISs, parole boards could determine the actual amount of time one spent in jail.
A convict could be released early for good behavior while in prison and placed on parole. This changed with the war on crime and drugs and now both violent and non-violent criminals including drug offenders must spend a larger proportion of their sentences behind bars and parole is often restricted. A federal TIS law passed during Clinton's administration in 1994 sweetened the pot for states to adopt truth in sentencing. They were now entitled to receive federal funding if convicted criminals served eighty-five percent of their sentences.
It is obvious that Clinton was not a friend of Black people nor was he good for Black people in the United States, but can a case to be made for Africa and Africans. Let us turn our attention toward Clinton's foreign policy with Africa by first discussing the Rwandan genocide. The Clinton administration was advised in 1993 that the conditions on the ground in Rwanda made genocide a real possibility. After a while in 1994, it was obvious that genocide was taking place in Rwanda according to the United Nations' definition of genocide—there was a concerted effort on the part of the Hutu-dominated government and its supporters to annihilate the Tutsi minority.
Instead of the Clinton administration recognizing this fact and putting pressure on the international community to intervene and to place peacekeepers in the country, it refused to recognize it as such. Rather, Madeleine Albright, whom we saw standing behind Hillary Clinton after the Iowa caucuses, argued against this. She was the Clinton administration's ambassador to the United Nations during the height of the genocide. Given the standing of the United States in the world and in the United Nations, the recognition of the killings as genocide may have helped to stop the bloodletting earlier.
However, the recognition of genocide means that the United States was obligated to intervene and it did not believe this small, land-locked, resource-poor country was worth the effort and sacrifice by its military or other countries' military. This was demonstrated when the United States pushed in the United Nations Security Council to reduce the amount of peacekeeping troops from 2,500 to 250. This was before and not after the killings had stopped. A true friend of Africa and Africans would have done the opposite to ensure that additional innocent lives were not lost.
African Americans loved him while he fervently worked to make the lives of working class and poor African Americans a living hell. However, it was not just the lives of the descendants of the four million slaves who were affected by Clinton's wrath.
Africans, West Indians, Latin Americans, and South Americans who were also a part of the African diaspora in this country were also affected—citizen, non-citizen, documented, and undocumented. Clinton's reach was long and he reached out and touched the lives of millions of Africans on the continent. Unfortunately, the effects of his negative actions are still with them as I write this blog.
Let me begin to unravel and dismantle the myth that Bill Clinton was good for and to African Americans by addressing his domestic record. First, an analysis of welfare reform is needed because not only did it adversely affect a lot of African Americans, it had a disproportionate negative effect on African American women who according to lawmakers and the media, would be the main beneficiaries of welfare reform. I clearly remember the day in 1996 when Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act on the White House lawn because the scenario was so racist.
Clinton smiled widely as he signed the legislation, took questions from the media, and praised Congress for passing such an important and historic piece of legislation while two large African American women stood by his side. Although white women made up a larger share of the welfare rolls, the media, politicians, and white Americans were convinced that African American women followed by Latinas were the main recipients of welfare and this merely reinforced the stereotype. Therefore, the legislation was overdue; these women needed to stop having children out of wedlock for the taxpayer to support and they needed to join the workforce. Clinton's policy was a long way from the Great Society and War on Poverty programs associated with President Lyndon Johnson who according to Hillary Clinton was responsible for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Clinton's policy was workfare and not welfare.
The welfare reform legislation was part and parcel of a neo-liberal economic agenda that called for a retrenchment of the state from its social welfare responsibilities. We often read, write, and talk about the rolling back of the African state as a result of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) superimposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, but we do not situate these same policies within the context of the United States and its poor and working classes. The federal government has offloaded and downloaded a number of social responsibilities to the states including some very important welfare programs as a result of the 1996 welfare reform legislation.
The legislation called for a drastic reduction in the welfare rolls and states were responsible for kicking off as many people as they could through their efforts to move people from welfare to workfare. African American women and others on welfare now had the options of working, attending school, or getting off welfare and they were given time limits depending on where they lived. Some women were given more time if they had children under a certain age or they suffered from disabilities and illnesses, but the bottom line was that the cycle of welfare dependency would no longer pass from one generation to the next. The results were mixed. There were some African American women who received educational and vocational training that allowed them to find gainful employment and to take care of themselves and their families. However, many women were not so fortunate. They were trapped in a never-ending cycle of dead-end, low paying jobs often in the service sector away from their places of residence with very few benefits including health and childcare.
They ended up in a lose-lose situation. Once they began to work and to earn an income, they ran the risk of losing some of their benefits. At the same time, the jobs did not pay enough to cover transportation to work as they jobs were often located in suburban areas away from urban centers. If the women resided in rural or small towns, the jobs often required having a car and some women could not afford to purchase and maintain one. To makes matters worst, under the new legislation, women did not qualify for some benefits once they began to earn a certain income. Finally, some women were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea concerning childcare. They were forced to work or to attend school, but some of them did not have adequate childcare or they could not afford to pay for it. Women traveled long distances to work at this minimum wage jobs with few or no benefits while their children were often left alone, with older siblings, neighbors, or relatives. These jobs were not always nine to five. These were the hospital, nursing home, restaurant, Wal-Mart jobs where women often worked the night and overnight shifts.
snip
Although African Americans cannot be deported, they can be permanently removed from society or at least for long periods of time through the court system and Clinton saw to that with the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes, and truth in sentencing—all interconnected and intertwined with the war on crime and drugs. These also coincided with the reduction of the state in welfare expenditures and in increase in state and local funding for the construction of new prisons that fueled the prison industrial complex.
There may not have been money for public schools, job training program, healthcare, and food, but there was money for prisons and jails. Again, these are associated with Reagan-Bush presidencies, but they were carried over and made harsher under the Clinton Administration. As the crack epidemic heated up in many African American communities throughout the United States, the arrests, convictions, and sentences for drug-related offenses increased. Under new drug sentencing laws, judges now had little discretion in the sentencing of drug offenders.
The rates of African American men and women who were charged, convicted, and sentenced for drug offenses increased under the Clinton Administration as judges were given little discretion in sentencing due to strict, statutory federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences for crimes that were committed three times. Similar to the situation of deportees, community ties and family relations should have been helpful in obtaining a reduced sentence or keeping the person out of prison. This was not the case even for women who were pregnant, had small children, or were responsible for other family members. States also adopted truth in sentencing (TIS) guidelines that gave way to the construction of more prisons. Prior to the enactment of TISs, parole boards could determine the actual amount of time one spent in jail.
A convict could be released early for good behavior while in prison and placed on parole. This changed with the war on crime and drugs and now both violent and non-violent criminals including drug offenders must spend a larger proportion of their sentences behind bars and parole is often restricted. A federal TIS law passed during Clinton's administration in 1994 sweetened the pot for states to adopt truth in sentencing. They were now entitled to receive federal funding if convicted criminals served eighty-five percent of their sentences.
It is obvious that Clinton was not a friend of Black people nor was he good for Black people in the United States, but can a case to be made for Africa and Africans. Let us turn our attention toward Clinton's foreign policy with Africa by first discussing the Rwandan genocide. The Clinton administration was advised in 1993 that the conditions on the ground in Rwanda made genocide a real possibility. After a while in 1994, it was obvious that genocide was taking place in Rwanda according to the United Nations' definition of genocide—there was a concerted effort on the part of the Hutu-dominated government and its supporters to annihilate the Tutsi minority.
Instead of the Clinton administration recognizing this fact and putting pressure on the international community to intervene and to place peacekeepers in the country, it refused to recognize it as such. Rather, Madeleine Albright, whom we saw standing behind Hillary Clinton after the Iowa caucuses, argued against this. She was the Clinton administration's ambassador to the United Nations during the height of the genocide. Given the standing of the United States in the world and in the United Nations, the recognition of the killings as genocide may have helped to stop the bloodletting earlier.
However, the recognition of genocide means that the United States was obligated to intervene and it did not believe this small, land-locked, resource-poor country was worth the effort and sacrifice by its military or other countries' military. This was demonstrated when the United States pushed in the United Nations Security Council to reduce the amount of peacekeeping troops from 2,500 to 250. This was before and not after the killings had stopped. A true friend of Africa and Africans would have done the opposite to ensure that additional innocent lives were not lost.
more at the link:
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008electionandracism/Clinton/clinton03.htm
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