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and black people in general,

are overrepresented in news as criminals.

When I say overrepresented,

that means they are shown as criminals

more times than is accurate,

that they are actually criminals, right,

based on FBI statistics.

I mean, I'm a big believer

in the power of media

full of these clichs

that basically present

mostly black and brown folks

who seem like animals in cages,

and then someone

can turn off the TV thinking...

"It's a good thing for prisons,

because, otherwise, those crazy people

would be walking on my block."

Creating a context

where people are afraid.

And when you make people afraid,

you can always justify

putting people in the garbage can.

Chances are you could run into a kid

waiting to relieve you

of your purse or wallet.

Every media outlet in the country

thinks I'm less than human.

I began to hear the word "super predator"

as if that was my name.

Super predator.

- Super predator.

- "Super predators," end quote.

That's the word they used

to describe this generation,

and it was very, very effective.

Experts call them super predators.

They are not just gangs of kids anymore.

They are often the kinds of kids

that are called super predators.

No conscience, no empathy.

A group of kids growing up

essentially fatherless,

godless and jobless.

For me, what's disturbing

is the degree to which black people

bought into that.

Animals, beasts that needed

to be controlled.

When those grandmothers say,

"But he's a good boy.

He never did anything,"

don't you believe it.

Black communities began

to actually support policies

that criminalized their own children.

Last night, the eight teens

accused of the attack

were arraigned on charges of rape

and attempted murder.

In the Central Park jogger case,

they put five innocent teens in prison,

because the public pressure

to lock up these quote, unquote animals

was so strong.

You better believe

that I hate the people

that took this girl

and raped her brutally.

- You better believe it.

- Donald Trump wanted to give

these kids the death penalty,

and he took out a full page ad

to put the pressure on.

These children, four of them under 18,

all went to adult prisons

for six to eleven years,

before DNA evidence proved

they were all innocent.

We make them their crime.

That's how we introduced them.

"That's a rapist. That's a murderer.

That's a robber.

That's a sex offender.

That's a burglar.

That's a gang leader."

And through that lens,

it becomes so much easier

to accept that they're guilty

and that they should go to prison.

The objective reality is...

that virtually no one who is white

understands the challenge

of being black in America.

So you have then educated a public,

deliberately, over years, over decades,

to believe that black men in particular,

and black people in general,

are criminals.

I want to be clear,

because I'm not just saying

that white people believe this, right?

Black people also believe this

and are terrified of our own selves.

You want to go back to the days

of military weakness,

caring more about criminals than victims?

We can't risk that.

I'd like your vote on Tuesday.

Leadership that's on your side.

Michael Dukakis for president.

In the midst of the, uh,

presidential campaign,

an ad was released about a person

by the name of Willie Horton.

Bush and Dukakis on crime.

Dukakis not only

opposes the death penalty,

he allowed first degree murderers

to have weekend passes from prison.

One was Willie Horton.

This became a focal point

of an entire presidential campaign.

Horton fled,

kidnapped a young couple,

stabbing the man

and repeatedly raping his girlfriend.

Weekend prison passes.

Dukakis on crime.

Dukakis had protected the program,

vetoed an effort to repeal it,

in that he favored letting murderers

out on the weekend.

That Dukakis

had a double-digit lead over Bush

before the campaign

focused on Willie Horton,

and after that, Bush overtook Dukakis

and won the election.

Which candidate for president

can you count on to be tough on crime?

George Bush.

Bush won the election by creating fear

around black men as criminal,

without saying that's what he was doing.

A very racially, um...

you know, divisive moment.

Depicting an African American criminal,

I think, was deliberate

on the part of that campaign.

There's no one who can tell me otherwise.

Liberals call him Willie Horton to make it

sound like you're being dismissive.

Original article was Reader's Digest.

William Horton, no picture.

The Democrats want you to know

he's black.

Thanks, Grover.

It was not his name,

it was his image

that was sensationalized.

Liberals that announced that it was mean

to pick on a murderer and a rapist

lose all credibility on this discussion.

They just lose it.

And people go,

"We don't want to hear anything else

you have to say about crime."

No matter what anybody says

or what anybody does,

they know exactly what button

they were trying to hit with that ad.

Stabbing the man

and raping his girlfriend.

It went to a kind of primitive fear,

a primitive American fear,

because Willie Horton

was metaphorically the black male rapist

that had been a staple

of the white imagination

since the time just after slavery.

Here was a black man

convicted of rape.

"I will be the savior and protector

of the white population."

Never minding the fact that the history

of interracial rape in this country,

that that record is far more marked

by white rape against black women

than of black men against white women.

Patsey.

This idea

that had such great artistic utility

in 1915 in Birth of a Nation

still had a great deal

of political utility

almost at the end of that century.

The way that we appeal to voters'

sense of fear and anxiety in our nation

runs through black bodies.

Yo, lil' Kadeija pops is locked

He wanna pop the lock

But prison ain't nothin'

But a private stock

She be dreamin'

'Bout his date of release

She hate the police

But loved by her grandma

Who hugs and kisses her

Her father's a political prisoner

Free Fred

Son of a Panther

That the government shot dead

Behind enemy lines

My niggas is cellmates

Most of the youths

Never escape the jail fates

Super maximum camps

Will advance they game plan

To keep us in the hands of the man

Locked up

A new generation

of Democrats, Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

They don't think the way

the old Democratic party did.

They've sent a strong signal to criminals

by supporting the death penalty.

Looking at the way in which

Democrats were defeated in 1988,

or they were defeated in 1984,

or they were defeated in 1980,

there comes to be a sentiment

among the Democrats

that they have to adopt a position

that is much more, uh, kind of, centrist.

It became virtually impossible

for a politician to run

and appear soft on crime.

I was not for the bill

that he was talking about

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