8 years ago
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Black Lives Matter vs. Bernie Sanders, explained
Why activists are interrupting Bernie Sanders events to challenge the candidate and his supporters to keep racial justice front and center
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http://www.vox.com
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I don't this article really gives a clear picture. I saw Bernie in person in New Orleans on July 26, and he was talking about demilitarizing the police force, and mentioned Sandra Bland by name back then. This article seems to suggest that he only just started talking about these issues after he was forced off the stage, and that's simply false.
He may have talked about it here and there, but it wasn't front-and-center like now. I think BLM was really offended by how he brushed them off the first time they confronted him (at Netroots). They told him that they would disrupt any politician who didn't have a racial justice plank in their platform. After Netroots, O'Malley adopted one, but Sanders did not. (He does now, though.)
Why didn't Sanders contact BLM, sit down with them, and hash out their concerns? He didn't take them seriously.
I don't really understand why they targeted Bernie, in the first place. It's pretty well known that he's been involved in the civil rights movement for decades now.
That's covered in the article.
A) He's the most receptive to their message, and
B) He's the "far left Democratic candidate". If even he doesn't take BLM seriously, BLM is screwed. Also, as the article says, it's a way to get their message to white liberals. White liberals are mainly concerned with the economy. Institutional racism is an afterthought. BLM needs white liberals to take the issue of institutional racism more seriously, because it's literally killing them.
I definitely agree with that, I just disagree with the method they used!
Yah, probably could've been better. I dunno. For one thing, white people don't like to listen to black people, especially about racial issues, and Sanders had already told them to shush before. I think they figured they had to step it up a notch in order to get to him.
I understand the frustration that all minorities must feel when their voice isn't heard, but I don't think stereotyping white people helps, either. I prefer to treat people by the strength of their ideas and actions rather than their skin color, and it's pretty weird to see it implied that I don't listen to someone just because my skin color happens to be white...
That’s absurd. I don’t know what’s more wrong with this statement: that you’re using races as labels for whatever you must be really talking about, or that you’re so comfortable making blanket statements about the supposed behavior of an entire race.
Source? Anything but this kind of invective at all? Context? A quote? What?
The only socialist in the race? To get to the only socialist in the race with the message of a liberation struggle, this leaderless coalition made the careful decision that the only next step was to further embarrass the only socialist seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination? That’s not credible. Protest for hire is a simpler explanation, and so more likely true.
Not you specifically, but white people in general don't like to listen to black people. This isn't something I just made up. If you talk to black activists or anti-racists, you'll hear the same thing.
Not every last person in that race, but yes, in general, white people don't like to listen to black people talk about racism. In fact, for the vast majority of us, it makes us very, very uncomfortable and defensive. There's a name for this phenomenon; it's "white fragility".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiNy6UA7zY
I'd be surprised if he was the only one, but he's not actually a traditional socialist. He's more like a democratic socialist. Frankly, I don't know why he calls himself a socialist. I agree with a lot of the things he says, and I don't call myself a socialist. Because I'm not.
Sure it is. That's what they themselves say, and they have a very good explanation for it, too. There's nothing incredible about it. I'd do the same thing in their place.
A conspiracy is not a "simpler explanation" than two people working alone. At minimum, you have to add a third person, the person paying them. That makes it more complicated right there. But I guess you'd have to add all of the protesters at Netroots, too. This gets less believable the more you think about it.
Ask yourself, “What’s wrong with this progression?”
Why might any audience not like to be lectured on prejudice? Could prejudice and hypocrisy on the part of the speaker, any speaker, play a part there?
Maybe I missed it in the video you provided. At what time index specifically does Sanders ‘shush’ those disrupting the event?
I don’t see what’s so hard about admitting that one’s movement has been co-opted. Any movement worth co-opting has been. Often to lower depths than cowardly provocations like this Swiftboating of Sanders. I may’ve thought Oscar Grant protesters shutting down the Port, BART and freeways in Oakland was misguided, and alienating to a mass public that needs to get to work, but at least that was powerful. BLM protest operations like heckling Sunday-morning brunch places in Berkeley, now that, on the other hand, is cowardice. Back-rationalizing attacks on Sanders, or piecing together some explanation for why teams should harass Cal kids with their visiting grandparents, that’s nonsense. There’s no higher purpose served, unless it’s to discredit the movement and galvanize the opposition, and more likely to knock down Sanders.
That’s to your working definition of a conspiracy, which is not the only possible conspiracy. Nor is a conspiracy all that hard to suss out given what’s known of these events, if you give it half a try. It bothers me to see people portrayed as anti-Democratic-Party by reason of association with Glen Ford and Black Agenda Report, but a pop-up sham is a pop-up sham whatever astroturfed links are on their half-baked quickie FaceCrook page.
You would prefer to believe that this was a tactic well-rooted in strategy by the movement. That takes a great deal of faith. More than I think is warranted. In fact, I’d like to suggest you consider the possibility, very seriously, that a leaderless, credential-less, mass popular movement will necessarily be co-opted and directed to ends sought by its opponents. Why would BLM be any different?
Personally, I try to avoid generalizations about any group of people.