Maher: Why Is #BlackLivesMatter Going After Sympathizers Like Hillary and Bernie?

Bill Maher spoke tonight about how #BlackLivesMatter activists have been engaging politicians recently, while also giving his surprise by the choices they’ve made in who to protest.

He started by explaining his confusion to Rep. Donna Edwards about why black activists were more interested in protesting events from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders rather than more of the Republican candidates. Maher also gave his thoughts that “black lives matter” was the appropriate phrase for the movement because it emphasizes how black people deal with a greater risk to face societal problems than other Americans.

Charles Cooke jumped in by pointing out how Clinton’s meeting with activists started out with an outline of grievances that African-Americans have faced over the years. He went on to say however, that as the dialogue progressed, the activists and Clinton couldn’t agree on how to take the platform forward, only how to acknowledge it.

In the end, Maher felt that the activists were making an odd choice to go after the people who have already embraced racial justice in their platform.

“Why start with Hillary Clinton. These are people who are sympathetic to this. Why don’t they go at it with one of the thousand Republicans.”

You can watch here, via HBO:

[image via screengrab]

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