Sister Souljah moment
Encyclopedia
In United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, a Sister Souljah moment is a politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

's public repudiation of an extremist
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...

 person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or the politician's party. Such an act of repudiation is designed to signal to centrist
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...

 voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party, although such a repudiation runs the risk of alienating some of the politician's allies and the party's base voters. The term is named for the political activist Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah is an American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer. She gained prominence for Bill Clinton's criticism of her remarks about race in the United States during the 1992 presidential campaign...

.

Origins

The term originates in the 1992 presidential candidacy of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. In a Washington Post interview published on May 13, 1992, the hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 MC
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

, author, and political activist Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah is an American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer. She gained prominence for Bill Clinton's criticism of her remarks about race in the United States during the 1992 presidential campaign...

 was quoted as saying, "If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" The remark was part of a longer response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots
1992 Los Angeles riots
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots or South Central Riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest were sparked on April 29, 1992, when a jury acquitted three white and one hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a...

. The quotation resulted in criticism.

In June 1992, Clinton responded both to that quotation and to something she had said in the music video of her song “The Final Solution: Slavery’s back in Effect” ("If there are any good white people, I haven't met them") while giving a speech to Jesse Jackson Sr.'s Rainbow Coalition
Rainbow/PUSH
Rainbow/PUSH is a non-profit organization formed as a merger of two non-profit organizations — Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition — founded by Jesse Jackson. The organizations pursue social justice, civil rights and political activism.In December 1971, Jackson resigned from...

, saying, “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black,’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke
David Duke
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...

 was giving that speech.”

Prior to his appearance, Clinton's campaign staff had conducted an intense debate about how far he should go in distancing himself from Jackson, who was unpopular with white and moderate voters. When Souljah was invited to speak at the conference, Clinton's advisors saw their chance. However, despite the meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...

-like nature of the term in the mainstream media
Mainstream media
Mainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...

, there is little evidence that the act by Clinton had any effect on voters' mindsets.

Clinton's response was harshly criticized by Jackson, who said, “Sister Souljah represents the feelings and hopes of a whole generation of people,” and he claimed that she had been misquoted. Clinton was also criticized by some of the Democratic Party's other African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 supporters. Clinton was accused by Sister Souljah of being a racist and a hypocrite because he had golfed at a country club that refused to admit Black members.

Other examples

As a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2000
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000
The 2000 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Governor of Texas George W...

, Texas Governor
Governor of Texas
The governor of Texas is the head of the executive branch of Texas's government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Texas Legislature, and to convene the legislature...

 George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, spoke before the conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

 Manhattan Institute
Manhattan Institute
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is a conservative, market-oriented think tank established in New York City in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J...

 in October 1999 saying, "Too often, on social issues, my party has painted an image of America slouching toward Gomorrah," quoting the title of a book
Slouching Towards Gomorrah
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline is a 1996 book by former United States Court of Appeals judge Robert H. Bork. Bork's thesis in the book is that American and more generally Western culture is in a state of decline and that the cause of this decline is modern...

 by conservative jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

 Robert Bork
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork is an American legal scholar who has advocated the judicial philosophy of originalism. Bork formerly served as Solicitor General, Acting Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...

. Bush's comments were seen as a repudiation of the religious right and an attempt to appeal to moderate voters; commentator Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer, MD is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New...

 called it "an ever-so-subtle Sister Souljah on Robert Bork."

Also in the 2000 campaign for the Republican nomination, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

 stated, “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...

 or Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...

 on the left or Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....

 or Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...

 on the right.” This was similarly seen as a repudiation of the religious right; columnist Jacob Weisberg
Jacob Weisberg
Jacob Weisberg is an American political journalist, serving as editor-in-chief of Slate Group, a division of The Washington Post Company. Weisberg is also a Newsweek columnist. He served as the editor of Slate magazine for six years, until stepping down in June 2008...

 called it "a pungent Sister Souljah moment."

During the 2008 United States presidential campaign, Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 nominee Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 experienced a number of events that were described as Sister Souljah moments. On April 29, in response to a series of provocative statements from his then-Pastor Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr. is Pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ , a megachurch in Chicago exceeding 6,000 members...

, Obama gave a speech where he distanced himself from Wright and called some of Wright's statements "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth." South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 Congressman
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

  James Clyburn said of the speech, "This, I think, offers Barack Obama his Sister Souljah moment"; the speech was also described as "more than a Sister Souljah moment" by columnist Maureen Dowd
Maureen Dowd
Maureen Bridgid Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author. During the 1970s and the early 1980s, she worked for Time magazine and the Washington Star, where she covered news as well as sports and wrote feature articles...

.

On July 8, former Special Counsel to Bill Clinton Lanny Davis
Lanny Davis
Lanny J. Davis is an American lawyer and lobbyist. From 1996 to 1998, he served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton.-Background:...

 called Obama's decision to vote for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008
FISA Amendments Act of 2008
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is an Act of Congress that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.-Background:...

 a "Sister Souljah moment" that showed "that as president he would be more committed to the 'solutions' business than to yield to the pressure to prove his ideological purity to his party's base."

On July 10, prior to a taping of Fox and Friends, civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

 was unwittingly caught by an open microphone whispering to a fellow interviewee, saying that Barack Obama was talking down to black people and that he, Mr. Jackson, wanted to cut Mr. Obama's "nuts off" ; Washington post columnist Dan Balz
Dan Balz
Daniel J. Balz is a journalist at The Washington Post, where he has been a political correspondent since 1978. Balz has served as National Editor, Political Editor, White House correspondent and as the Washington Post’s Texas-based Southwest correspondent. Balz sometimes appears on the news show...

called it Obama's Accidental Sister Souljah moment, saying Jackson's public image was of old-style Black politics.
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