Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. slammed Hillary Clinton’s “positive gangs” remark on Friday, saying that it clearly represents how “totally disconnected” she is from life in the black community.
"Joining a gang is like having a family,” Clinton said during a recent discussion about gun violence in Connecticut. “It’s feeling like you are a part of something bigger than yourself. So we’re either going to have gangs that murder and rob and do the things that are so destructive to their members and to the community, or we’re going to have positive gangs, we’re going to have positive alternatives for young people.”
Clarke suggested Clinton’s remarks were insulting in that “she thinks we’re some lower form of intelligence--because we don’t have a family experience we should join a gang.”
“I mean that is preposterous,” he added, noting that joining a church community or the boy scouts/girl scouts would have been a better suggestion to make.
“[Gang activity] is dysfunctional culture. For her to sit up there and embrace this as if it’s something that’s socially acceptable in the black community,” he said, “this stuff ought to be rejected.”
Clarke explained that the real reason the black community lacks family structure is because of failed liberal urban policies like the war on poverty.
“She should have brought that up and said ‘we gotta change these policies so we can help the black community reconstruct their family experience so kids can make better lifestyle choices.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member