August 24, 2015--Hillary's Sort of Sister Souljah Moment

After they disrupted her town hall meeting in Keene, NH, earlier this month, Hillary Clinton agreed to meet privately with representatives of Black Lives Matter, the activist organization that emerged in 2012 in response to Trayvon Martin being shot to death by George Zimmerman.

It has gained additional public attention more recently as the result of a series of killings of young black men by white policemen. Black activist members of BLM have been active on the presidential campaign trial, disrupting meetings of candidates of both parties, though mainly Democrats.

The private meeting occurred August 11th and a tape of it was released last week. It showed a very different picture of Hillary Clinton than the one seen on the campaign trail.

Rather than the cautious, heavily scripted, disciplined, insulated Hillary, who would rarely deviate from her notes and talking points or plunge into the crowd, it showed, in the words of the New York Times report, a "spontaneous, impassioned" Hillary, seemingly "unconcerned about potential repercussions."

Considering how essential the black vote is to her candidacy, she gave as good as she got in her encounter. If the media could for one moment have stopped the obsession with Donald TRUMP (which I confess to share) it could have been her Sister Souljah Moment.

That Moment occurred back in 1992 during the presidential campaign when Bill Clinton embraced and even bigger risk when he took on racist comments by Souljah, a popular hip-hop artist and black activist.

Among other things she said, "If there are any good white people, I haven't met them."

Clinton shot back, at great political risk, "If you took the words 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them, you might think [Ku Klux Klanner] David Duke was giving that speech."

Some feel this rare example of courage won the election for Clinton.

At her meeting with the Black Lives Matters group, Hillary Clinton was criticized for her "culpability" in supporting her husband's criminal justice polices that, they claimed, were responsible for the incarceration of disproportionate numbers of black men.

She listened for more than five minutes, nodding as they confronted her for not doing enough to oppose racism and federal polices that contribute ultimately to the killing of innocent black people.

From the heart, she challenged them in return, saying, "You can get lip service from as many white people you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it who are going to say,'We get it, we get it. We are gong to be nicer.' That's not enough in my book."

Further, she pressed them to move beyond rhetoric to action, citing her own work decades ago with the Children's Defense Fund. Unless young people become directly engaged in efforts that actually make a difference, she told them, if making speeches and demonstration is all that happen, "We'll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation."

That unscripted Hillary could be elected if nominated.