CNN Commentator and former Congressional Black Caucus Executive Director Angela Rye stated that Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s past use of the term “superpredator” “reminds me of a time when black people were deemed subhuman, or less than human in some way, or 3/5s human” on Thursday’s “CNN Newsroom.”
Rye said that while Hillary has apologized for using the term, “it seemed a little disingenuous when her lead surrogate, Bill Clinton,” defended the use of the term on the campaign trail.
She added, “I would argue that there’s never been a time for the term ‘superpredator’ to be used to talk about human beings. For me, while I wasn’t here for slavery, it reminds me of a time when black people were deemed subhuman, or less than human in some way, or 3/5s human. So, I think it is never okay to use that type of terminology when talking about a group of people, even if they are leaning towards criminal activity. You are — we’re in a situation today, where if you are born black in this country, you have a 1 in 3 chance of spending time in prison. That is in part due to the crime bill. I would say no thank you to that crime bill. It has led to the problem of mass incarceration, and while it didn’t create it, we also could argue, frankly, that crime began to diminish in 1992 which, of course, preceded the crime bill.”
(h/t Mediaite)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett