Eric Holder
Eric Holder
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr.served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, is the first African American to hold the position of U.S. Attorney General...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth21 January 1951
CityBronx, NY
CountryUnited States of America
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Kids who I grew up with, who I played ball with, basketball, baseball, and went to parties with - for whatever reason - they ended up in a fundamentally different place than I did. I'm the attorney general of the United States and they are ex-felons.
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I'd like to continue being involved with issues that animated my time as attorney general - criminal-justice reform and civil rights especially. I don't just want to give speeches; I'd like to involve myself in this work in a systematic way.
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I was raised - professionally - in the Public Integrity Section. I started in 1976, stayed there for 12 years. It was formed after Watergate by then-head of the Criminal Division Dick Thornburgh, who ultimately became Attorney General.
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On a personal level, I've seen a lot in my time as attorney general, but few things have affected me as greatly as my visit to Ferguson. I had the chance to meet with the family of Michael Brown. I spoke to them not just as attorney general but as a father of a teenage son myself.
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The responsibility of the attorney general is to change things and bring us closer to the ideals expressed in our founding documents.
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Although the attorney general is a part of the president's team, you're really separate and apart. You have a special responsibility as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. There has to be a distance that you keep - between this department and the White House.
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I sit here as the first African-American attorney general, serving the first African-American President of the United States. And that has to show that we have made a great deal of progress. But there's still more we have to travel along this road so we get to the place that is consistent with our founding ideals.
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If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities.
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I'm attorney general of the United States. I will not stand for - I will not allow people to take away that which people gave their lives to give, and that is the ability for the American people to vote.
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I still think that we have a hesitance to talk about things racial. And I think we do it at our detriment. We go from incident to incident, and we have spikes in which race becomes something that we talk about, as opposed to talking about race in those less contentious times when I think we might make more progress.
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When it comes to police officers, I have concerns about the training that they receive. This whole notion of implicit bias, looking at people and having stereotypical reactions to them on the basis of their ethnicity.
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I think one of the things that I don't think people focus on is that there are some red states that have done some really innovative things when it comes to criminal justice reform, including on rehabilitation, reentry efforts. I think one of the things that we have seen in that regard is that you save money.
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Those who peacefully gather to express sympathy for the family of Michael Brown must have their rights respected at all times. And journalists must not be harassed or prevented from covering a story that needs to be told.
history
History simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson.