In that time many black “leaders” were trying to adjust Black culture. There was hope that communities could organize and stigmatize the bangers. Hope that kids would see that stigma and not follow the gangs. At that time i taught many kids from Queensbridge Houses in NYC. There was a definite effort to recruit NBA players like Vern Fleming who hailed from “the Bridge” to publicize their oposition to the banger culture.I had 8th grade kids whose idea of a good essay topic was explaining their desire to own a “9” and have some bitches at their beck and call. We actually were given Board of Ed lesson plans on stigmatizing the banger culture and the gun culture. They did not involve stigmatizing legal gun owners in Onondaga County or Rockland county. That was the gist and context of the 95 remarks by Holder. Now? It’s a different story.
I suppose one of the benefits of getting old is that you forget the past, however unpleasant it might be.
Unfortunately, I don't suffer from it even though my children remind me constantly that I was not born yesterday.
The refusal of black "leaders" to take responsibility did not begin at the start of the Twenty First Century, and by 1995 was in fact WELL underway, your own parochial experience notwithstanding. There has never been a serious undertaking to change the culture of dependency, misogyny and violence in inner city culture. If anything, the effort has been to promote it. Or have you been paying no attention to the vulgarity and increasing depravity of the Hip Hop era, and everything that goes with it?
Those of us whose memories did not begin recently recall Eric Holder from the Clinton administration. He was a gun grabber who full-throatedly supported the "assault weapons ban" in 1994 and has never seen a gun regulation of any kind that he couldn't support. The history of racism rampant in departments and sub-departments under his control is well and publicly documented.
It strains credulity that Holder decided to take a break from either his anti-Second Amendment activities in the US Justice Department or his career racism in order to participate neutrally in a marginal outreach program being carried out in a New York school district; except perhaps to New Yorkers, who believe that the country, if not the universe, revolves around their petty concerns.
Fortunately, at least a few New Yorkers remembered the disastrous black "leadership" of David Dinkins, who did everything possible to encourage the rampant violence and excuse-making short of paying an actual bounty for it -- about which you claim black "leaders" were so concerned -- long enough to turf him out.
Ah, but that was up until 1993, which is perhaps not fixed well in your mind. By 1995 black "leadership" had become so much more responsible.
In the real world, Holder has a long history, and I'm content to let those with some familiarity with it, as well as his history of race hustling to judge his remarks for themselves.