In a private meeting with Black Lives Matter, Hillary Clinton took a question from a member of the group, who asked if she would be open to decriminalizing marijuana and ‘sex work’. Hillary replied by saying that she is open to it, and appeared to have put much thought into the legal mechanisms around doing so.
See complete WikiLeaks email here:
See complete Wikileaks transcript of the meeting here.
“QUESTION: Okay. I’ll go. I want to say that I live by a poem from Lucille Clifton called Celebrate, and the last line is, “Won’t you celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and has failed?”
Earlier, I talked about representing the 20 trans women of color who have been murdered this year. And in thinking about police violence, I think a lot of times we focus on how it shows up with men, because you met with a lot of the black male family members who have been murdered by police, but only one woman, and it was (Sandra Bland?).
And I can tell you that specifically or particularly black trans women are being criminalized by the police at a disproportionate rate.
I know you just spoke at the HRC National Dinner, and I don’t know what they told you about the culture or climate for LGBT folks in this country (since love one?) this past summer.
But this is LGBT history month, and so I have to like speak up and list the names of Marsha P. Johnson (ph), and (Ms. Major?), who are black trans women, who started the movement back in 1969 at Stonewall. And they were rebelling against police, because when they would come in and raid the bar they would separate people based on gender and tell them, if you don’t have on three articles of clothing that match your ID, then you’re going to jail for falsification or impersonation of the opposite gender.
And I think those legacies of policing, much in the same way that they’ve been passed down since slavery and like bounty hunting and like fugitive catchers, slave catchers, still exist today when we’re dealing with the police.
I think about (Shelly Hilliard?) from Detroit who was coerced into being an informant by the Detroit police department. And when they apprehended the person they wanted to arrest, they told him he was a well-known drug dealer, and they told him that Shelly was the one who told — ratted him out basically. And the next day she went missing and we’re still — I think a few months ago they were still finding body parts of hers that had been scattered around Detroit, right?
I also think about (Keisha Jenkins?), who was only 22 years old in Philadelphia, who was murdered earlier this week. And she was beat by six men, and then shot twice in the back.
And so I’m wondering like about your commitment to going there for our communities’ most vulnerable and at-risk populations. I think the conversation around poverty and policing goes hand-in-hand because I think that that’s where a lot of the interaction first happens with folks when they come into the police.
I think about Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes, but I also think about Shelly from Detroit because she was a sex worker.
And so I’m just wondering, what do you think your role would be as president to kind of work on the decriminalization of like black LGBT folks, and specifically around like decriminalization of sex work, decriminalization of marijuana, those things that have historically been used to oppress us.
HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah. You know, first of all, just as I’ve said before, I just can’t even imagine the kind of pressure and the constant anxiety and insecurity that you and so many others live with.
From my perspective we do need to look hard at decriminalizing behavior that is not harmful, that is not leading to violence, and try to figure out how best to do that.
Sitting here today, I can’t tell you. I don’t know. I haven’t —
QUESTION: But do you support it?
HILLARY CLINTON: I support the idea of it. I’m not sure exactly how you would implement it and how — you know, because remember, most of the laws you’re talking about are state and local laws. I mean, the federal government can encourage, can make suggestions, can provide incentives, but most criminal law, most policing, all of the problems that we’ve been discussing are really controlled at the local and the state level. So you have to have a buy-in by others, not just by the federal government.
I think there is more conversation going on about this now, at least that I am aware of, of people talking about what can be done to decriminalize low-level offenses to try to avoid prison, to try to provide different kinds of support and diversionary measures to people who might be in need. I mean there is a difference between an adult sex worker and a child trafficked into being a sex worker, so you cannot just make a blanket statement, you have to figure out what the different work situations are.”
It must be noted that Clinton has come out against the decriminalization of sex work in the past:
“I do not approve of legalized prostitution or any kind of prostitution. It is something that I personally believe is demeaning to women. I have worked against it and I have certainly taken a very strong stand against what happens in many parts of the world where young girls and women are forced into prostitution against their wills.”
