Far before the Black Lives Matter movement was launched and before high-profile cases of police brutality permeated the national media, more than half of black millennials said in 2009 that they knew a victim of police violence.
The University of Chicago released a report titled “Black Millennials in America” with the 2009 survey data that highlights how many people of color know victims of police violence and how many say they can trust law enforcement. With growing acknowledgment that police violence affects communities across the United States — and now statistics to back it up — political candidates vying for the presidency will not be able to ignore this growing demographic or young, black voters’ desire for comprehensive criminal justice reform.
Already, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has taken steps to align herself with those to whom this issue is vital. On Monday, she met with the mothers of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Trayvon Martin in addition to other family members of black men killed by police or affected by gun violence.
Lesley McSpadden, Brown’s mother, said in a statement to ThinkProgress that the meeting was “intimate and powerful.”
“She addressed the fact that back when she first got in the Senate years ago she didn’t think some of those revisions were necessary or needed,” she said about police reform. “However, things change and with that your state of mind changes. She said her state of mind has changed, because of what she’s witnessing and what we’re living in right now. What will stay in my heart and mind is that she told us we can hold her to her word.”
Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, said she felt similarly.
“She is a mother and she is a woman and I felt she understood where we were coming from,” she told CNN. “It doesn’t matter what color we are, I felt that she really understand where we are coming from.”
Clinton tweeted about the meeting in the hopes that it would appeal to Democratic voters:
Grateful to spend time today with mothers who have lost a child to violence and turned their grief into a national call to action. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 3, 2015
Millennials will be a major voting bloc in the 2016 election — the U.S. Census Bureau said earlier this year that millennials surpassed baby boomers as the country’s largest living generation. And even though millennials have lower voter turnout, 4 million additional millennials become eligible to vote each year and the group will make up 40 percent of the electorate by 2020.
But when they are motivated — by a candidate or a particular issue — the millennial vote can make all the difference. President Obama saw that effect in 2008 and 2012, when he also secured the black vote in order to win the general election.
As 2016 hopefuls look into how to harness the potential of millennial and black voters, it will be hard for them to look over the police violence study. Already the Democratic candidates have had to roll out criminal justice platforms at the insistence of Black Lives Matter activists, who have interrupted their campaign events.
Last week, during the Atlanta speech when Clinton was interrupted, she said she would ban racial profiling as president. She has expressed a dedication to fighting for criminal justice reform since early in her campaign, saying in April that there “is something profoundly wrong” with the fact that black men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police.
But advocates say she still has not gone far enough.
I'm still not convinced that Hillary's current strategy of the one-speech-one-policy re: releasing a criminal justice platform makes sense.
— deray mckesson (@deray) November 2, 2015
https://twitter.com/Nettaaaaaaaa/status/660193877035323392
Arielle Newton, a 23-year-old black college graduate, wrote for PBS earlier this year that she may not vote in this presidential election because “the presidential slate is underwhelming at best, and terrifying at worst.”
“To vote means to reinforce a white supremacist structure that actively, strategically and relentlessly exploits and exterminates black lives both domestically and globally,” she wrote.
But, she acknowledged that staying home would be handing a victory to opponents.
“My disillusionment comes with great irony; the nation’s first black president was elected twice because marginalized groups voted in record numbers,” she wrote. “Ever since, the racist opposition has (always) been increasingly bloodthirsty in its attempt to disenfranchise black voters; using structural tactics such as gerrymandering and voter identification laws to decrease black voter turnout.”
While Democratic candidates may not do enough to address racism and discriminatory policing, Republicans are working to make it hard for black millennials to vote. Voter ID laws disproportionately affect younger voters and people of color, especially in states that do not permit voters to present student ID cards at polling places.
Update:
This post has been updated with comments from Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother.