Rev. Al Sharpton accused both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders of attempting to “rewrite history” in recent attempts to walk away from their support of a 1994 crime bill blamed for a rise in the number of black men imprisoned.
“It is almost like you’re trying to play on the intelligence of those of us that were against the bill,” the cable news pundit and civil rights leader said Sunday on MSNBC.
“To just say that the statement ‘predator’ is bad, and it was, but both of them supported the bill,” Sharpton said, referencing controversy over Clinton’s use of the term ‘super-predator’ in 1996. “And I feel the bill was wrong and proved to be wrong.”
“I would have a lot more respect if people just said: ‘Look it was a mistake. We were wrong,'” Sharpton said. “How do you take the same side and attack the other one … when you both did the same thing,” he said. “You supported the bill.”
“This would be far more responsible than trying to rewrite history,” he added.
The Violent Crime Control Act gained attention this week when protesters confronted former President Bill Clinton about his wife’s comment in 1994 that repeat juvenile offenders are “super predators.”
“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack, sent them out onto the street to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t,” Clinton responded. “You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth. You are defending the people who cause young people to go out and take guns.”
Sanders later reacted to Clinton’s defense of his wife, saying that Clinton “owes the American people an apology.” On Sunday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta hit back. Podesta accused Sanders of “airbrushing history,” citing the fact that the senator voted in favor of the bill.
Sharpton urged the two candidates to move past statements that he said “offended me.”
He called Clinton’s comment 20 years ago “outrageous” and blasted Sanders saying last month that white people don’t know what it’s like to be poor and living in a ghetto. Many took Sanders’ line as implying that only black people face poverty.
Sharpton urged Clinton and Sanders to admit their mistakes and move on to solutions to the effects of mass incarceration.
“I want them to tell me how they’re going to get people out of jail that they helped to put in jail,” Sharpton continued.
In the run up to New York’s April 19 primary, both Clinton and Sanders are scheduled to speak this week at a convention in New York City held by Sharpton’s National Action Network.
