In an interview with Bloomberg, filmmaker and newly-minted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Ice Cube said Hillary Clinton’s “superpredators” comments in 1996 helped “justify” the police brutality that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“To call your own citizens ‘superpredators’ is pretty harsh and a pretty big indictment,” Ice Cube said. “It’s really not solving the problem, it’s just making it worse. Now the authorities feel like their justified in how they treat these so-called ‘superpredators.'”
Ice Cube was referring to Hillary Clinton’s 1996 comments where she said America needs to bring “no conscience, no empathy, superpredator gangs of kids to their heels.” Hillary was rallying support for President Bill Clinton’s violent crime legislation, laws that Ice Cube says caused more harm than good.
“The L.A.P.D. did a war on gangs,” Cube said. “But if I’m a black kid that’s not in a gang but I look like a gang member to this white officer, than it’s a war on me.”
“That’s the problem with a term like superpredators,” he said.
“And for some reason, the Democrats feel they’re exempt from these [Black Lives Matter] protests like ‘we’re Democrats, why are you talking to us like this, go talk to the Republicans,'” Ice Cube added. “No, no. Everybody’s a little guilty of turning their back or passing bad legislation and everyone should be called out on it.”
Ice Cube believes that Hillary’s comments from the 90s are still relevant to today.
If Hillary Clinton “becomes the president of the United States, we need to know what she’s thinking, how does she think, how she’s going to handle, how she’s going to fix this. She helped create it, in a way,” Ice Cube.
On Donald Trump, Ice Cube says he doesn’t think the Republican presidential candidate is “going to do anything to help poor people or people that’s struggling” because Trump is a “rich white guy. How can he relate?”
On Bernie Sanders, Ice Cube says “To me, it’s like he’s been in there [Congress] 30 years and you know, what have you done? You been up in there. What are you gonna do different from outside Congress? All of ’em to me have work to do to get my vote.”
Barbershop: The Next Cut, Ice Cube’s latest in the successful comedy series, opens in theaters April 15.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson
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