Black Lives Matter Activist Confronts Hillary Clinton for Calling Black Children "Super-Predators"

In 1996, Hillary Clinton defended her husband's tough stance on crime by referring to "gangs of kids" as "super-predators."

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Hillary Clinton was confronted by a #BlackLivesMatter protester in South Carolina on Wednesday, though the Secret Service quickly ejected the peaceful activist from the private fundraising event. Ashley Williams, an activist based in North Carolina, reportedly paid $500 to attend the event with the intention of inspiring Clinton to acknowledge the negative impact of the Democratic presidential hopeful's incendiary 1996 remarks about black children.

"We need to take these people on," Hillary told a New Hampshire audience in 1996 in support of her husband's crime bill, according to CNN. "They are often connected to big drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super-predators." Adding that these children had "no conscience [and] no empathy," Hillary insisted that America must "bring them to heel." Williams, holding a banner emblazoned with a quote from Hillary's controversial '96 statement, told Hillary in South Carolina on Wednesday that she needed to apologize for the nation's incarceration epidemic. "I'm not a super-predator, Hillary Clinton," Williams said before being removed.

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Hillary's response to Williams' brief act of protest, though not derogatory or even downright dismissive, has many undecided voters questioning her allegiance to the cause of continued social justice. "You know what, nobody's ever asked me before," Hillary told Williams when asked about the "super-predator" remark, the New York Daily News notes. "You're the first person to ask me and I'm happy to address it, but you’re the first person to ask me."

In a statement to the Washington Post's Jonathan Capeheart on Thursday, Hillary Clinton offered nothing in the way of an apology but did admit her obviously horrendous choice of words. "Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today," Hillary says. "My life’s work has been about lifting up children and young people who’ve been let down by the system or by society."

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