Slog
Aug 8, 2015 5:56 PM
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Comments
Sanders is dealing with a huge part of the problem of inequality. Sad some choose to ignore that fact.
There is such a thing as tactics, Mara and Marissa. You would do well to study them, and what effective tactics look like. There are also things called "allies" and "enemies". Again, you two would do well to learn how to identify and differentiate between the two, after you grow up and learn how to read.
One really has to conclude that these two had the express purpose of delegitimizing the BLM movement. Well, mission accomplished, girls.
It's like a game of Mad Libs!
But I guess some Black Lives Matters supporters are Ready For Hillary!!!
(And apparently politically and historically too clueless to know that it was a Clinton that signed and championed the law creating mandatory minimum sentencing for penny ante drug offenses. Or the Welfare 'Reform' law that eviscerated the social safety net. Or the law deregulating the banking industry, that suddenly made Predatory Lending to Blacks Matter.]
But I'm sure these folks will disrupt the rally Hillary Clinton throws in Seattle....right? LOL!! I think we know they will be no where to be found.
You should all read their press release BLM put out today, the points they make about Murray are right on.
Sanders fumbled badly with BLM at Netroots, and has yet to apologize.
Sanders needs to reach out to BLM and mend fences
The Facebook post is completely nonsensical. Refusing to let someone speak doesn't "honor Black lives." Shouting down one of your supporters doesn't show "radical love" for your Black brothers and sisters. They weren't putting their "lives and bodies on the line" for anything (what did they think the police were going to shoot them or Bernie was going to haul off and punch one of them?!).
I'm not even a Bernie Sanders fan and even I can tell that they're targeting the wrong person. Sanders fairly clearly agrees with BLM on pretty much every substantive point as he has said repeatedly in speeches after the Netroots Nation hecklers. This is another sad case of misguided leftist "activists" lashing out at whoever happens to be close by, which unfortunately often happens to be an ally.
Moreover, this is representative of the misguided nature of activism in many circles theses days. Where doing something, anything is considered more important than focusing on the goals of the movement. Where the number of people you offend is deemed more important than the number of people you help. It's the kind of activism where the person who shouts the loudest and causes the biggest ruckus is cheered on by the fawning masses, while the cause slowly dies.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Now shut up so I can hear the guy speak
Damn it.
poorly handled, by nearly all. how seattle, how embarrassing. now "white supremacist liberalism" is going to become a republican meme, so... thanks for that.
& btw, "young ladies" is condescending and sexist.
Now enter the BLM leaders, demanding to "be heard and accepted" by the leadership and it just seems to be a play to get a piece of the pie. No doubt the core message of BLM is an important one. No doubt it must be heard. I think a lot of people are honestly trying to address a crisis which requires disruption. But what is the core of BLM after. They aren't biting Hillary's hand.. Bruce Dixon spoke to this on Black Agenda Report, you can listen or read the transcript here:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/wheres-…
Also Doug Henwood had Adolph Reed on Behind the News with an interesting commentary about the BLM participation at the Left Forum in NYC a couple months back
http://johnhalle.com/outragesandinterlud…
I found Reed's comments verging on a little deaf at times but I think he's grappling with a confrontation that leftist, especially hard leftist that would support candidates like Sanders, a little hard to understand why the belligerence. The hard left has been critical of Obama and his lack of race relations.... WHY would you come after people that are willing to attack black leadership for not holding cops and America accountable??
Perhaps Bernie is just seen as another Dem... much more accessible when he's not hiding behind garden gates in mansions like Hillary i guess? Or is a vocal and brave contingent just not familiar with who is really on their side?
It's a damned shame.
The fact that you can't grasp the subtle complexities of issues, or cause and effect doesn't make the rest of us dumb. But you might be.
But I'm sure you'll counter that the crowd of liberals there, who likely helped elect our first black president, have secretly been running our hands with glee as he and our first black attorney general haven't done so much about police violence. But that's probably more because you are addicted to feeling butthurt, than actual reality. I think you have a case of Not Too Bright Privilege.
They aren't out of touch. The "protest speech" was out of touch. Watching it was like taking a graduate level course titled "How to Lose an Audience in 5 Minutes or Less".
It would not have been difficult for them to get their voices heard, presented themselves as a positive force, gathered more support, and walked off stage to wild cheers. They chose instead to insult the audience, make behavioral demands, insult again, demand again, insult once more, then declare that the whole reason everyone showed up would not be happening because we were all racists or something. If your rhetorical strategy is to alternate between insults, demands, and disappointment.... well... you aren't going to win friends and influence people.
I really hope that those folks aren't actually affiliated with BLM.
This was not a BLM action. To assuage any conspiracy theories, this was still likely a group of African American protesters, but their only affiliation with BLM is in their own minds. That would make this a false flag operation, a covert operation designed to deceive in such a way that the operation appears as though it is being carried out by a group other than the one that actually planned and executed it.
Blaming BLM for the actions of uninvolved third parties seems beneath Seattle and Slog posters.
I'm not a particularly Bernie man but I don't think you can judge him on his blue hair supporters. He had the sense to refuse the mic when the whole thing was getting particularly messed up. He's in a bad spot right now.
Oh well. Sanders has as much chance of moving on to be the nominee as I do, so I guess their street theatre will at least make them feel good about themselves.
I've hear enough white retiree opinions from my family and friends to know that they tend to think no one worked harder or deserves more than them. And generalizing about white people isn't racist because you can't hurt someone with your opinion when they have all the power.
Idiots.
And why assume these two women represent anyone other than themselves?
You got me thinking. I mostly hang out with friends and people I generally like, in other words, allies. We fuck with each other a lot. In fact I can't think of many enemies I even have, possibly on the internet, but that's a little too meta.
Its not bernie's job to be a bouncer. The event coordinators and staff should have handled this much better.
And seriously, who cares if it interrupted the speech of a presidential hopeful, Social Democrat or not? How is it okay to protest arctic drilling by aggressive means but not institutionalized racism? Is there a proper place and time to protest when doing so means risking not having your message take hold? Will voting in the Social Democrat really do anything to curb issues of entrenched economic inequality or racism so long as we continue to tacitly accept the tenets of Capitalism? Let's face it, property ownership and liberalized markets coupled with a booming population are not the friends of social or environmental harmony.
I know that thinking about this is hard, and I gather many of your are not especially occupied with thinking critically about social issues like racism and the ways in which it is manifested. Lucky for you, dear commenters, there are actually people who get paid to think profoundly about these issues. A good example is Judith Butler, a professor at UC, Berkeley who addresses the very kinds of circumstances evidenced at the Bernie Sanders rally in a NYT Q&A from January of this year:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/201…
"J.B.: ...The practices of public mourning and political demonstration converge: when lives are considered ungrievable, to grieve them openly is protest. So when people assemble in the street, arrive at rallies or vigils, demonstrate with the aim of opposing this form of racist violence, they are “speaking back” to this mode of address, insisting on what should be obvious but is not, namely, that these lost lives are unacceptable losses.
On the one hand, there is a message, “Black Lives Matter,” which always risks being misheard (“What? Only black lives matter?”) or not heard at all (“these are just people who will protest anything”). On the other hand, the assembly, even without words, enacts the message in its own way. For it is often in public spaces where such violence takes place, so reclaiming public space to oppose both racism and violence is an act that reverberates throughout the public sphere through various media.
G.Y.: I’ve heard that some white people have held signs that read “All Lives Matter.”
J.B.: When some people rejoin with “All Lives Matter” they misunderstand the problem, but not because their message is untrue. It is true that all lives matter, but it is equally true that not all lives are understood to matter which is precisely why it is most important to name the lives that have not mattered, and are struggling to matter in the way they deserve.
Claiming that “all lives matter” does not immediately mark or enable black lives only because they have not been fully recognized as having lives that matter. I do not mean this as an obscure riddle. I mean only to say that we cannot have a race-blind approach to the questions: which lives matter? Or, which lives are worth valuing? If we jump too quickly to the universal formulation, “all lives matter,” then we miss the fact that black people have not yet been included in the idea of “all lives.” That said, it is true that all lives matter (we can then debate about when life begins or ends). But to make that universal formulation concrete, to make that into a living formulation, one that truly extends to all people, we have to foreground those lives that are not mattering now, to mark that exclusion, and militate against it. Achieving that universal, “all lives matter,” is a struggle, and that is part of what we are seeing on the streets. For on the streets we see a complex set of solidarities across color lines that seek to show what a concrete and living sense of bodies that matter can be."
I'm not sure Hillary or any of the Republican candidates would have been so wily.
Yeah, if you're disappointed in not hearing from a politician and perturbed at instead hearing from two justifiably angry black women putting said politician on-the-spot for giving what they see as mere lip-service to issues of importance to them and to their community, then perhaps your sense of priorities are a little misplaced. We all know Sanders was on-board with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's, but this isn't about stances he took 50 years ago; it's about how he's addressing these issues today. And I can imagine that from these women's perspective his reticence to speak directly to the topic (and no, limiting one's rhetoric to purely economic issues doesn't cut it), to address the problem of institutional and cultural racism head-on, to acknowledge that racism is about far more than economics, is simply further evidence of how little he seems willing to engage with minority voters in general. I mean, all you have to do to get where they're coming from is to look at the audience at a typical Sanders rally: probably 95% white.
If he wants more credibility with minority voters (with whom he's not exactly a household name), he HAS to talk about the issues that affect them; and while economic issues are certainly a part of that, it's not the only thing, and my guess would be not the most important thing.
The protestors had a legitimate gripe. All this excitement about Bernie was overshadowing the anniversary of Mike Brown's death. White liberals are pumped about Bernie and don't have time for that BLM nonsense because WE HAVE A POLITICAL REVOLUTION TO WIN!!!
After the hubbub, Bernie escaped to an all-white crowd at the Comet where he went into his usual stump: Income inequality, climate change, student debt, Citizen's United (white people problems) before finally saying a few words about police reform (for which he has no plan) and acknowledging Sandra Bland and Sam DuBose then transitioning into youth unemployment and raising money for his campaign. There really was nothing there for black folks, which is why there were no black folks there.
The only way the BLM movement will be successful is to continue to make white people uncomfortable about their privilege. In Seattle, white privilege runs deep, as was witnessed by the booing and hissing of an angry crowd. Bernie should have took the mic and loudly proclaimed "BLACK LIVES MATTER!" But Bernie looked very uncomfortable and got the hell out of there.
Jeb Bush recently dismissed the BLM movement as a "slogan" but it's not. Today was a reminder that it's not going away, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.
@60. Great comment. Wish you woukd write for the Strangler
As for the notion that activism is rude and inherently disruptive...then what is the point? If your goal is to inconvenience at the least and ideally anger, how does that "wake people up" to then support the cause? It doesn't. It never will. Continued belief that such things do accomplish change in attitude is intentional dumbfuckery. This particular group did more damage to their cause than anything--which is unfortunate since the issue of trigger happy policing is critically important.
I was trying to say that to many "moderate" racists likely had that term triggered for them. BLM was created in the midst of an ongoing, previously hidden and obscured, practice of bullying and killing of people with brown skin.
I think the anger and frustration is warranted, but put to better effect at GOP rallies. Actions like today's will only drive a further wedge between the righteously angry victims of our society's racism, and the "moderate" racists who would otherwise have supported the BLM cause out of embarrassment or shame. Every ally counts.
Give em' that at least.
I had thought there were people of color at the subsequent Sanders' events, but I guess those who said they attended were lying.
Here is a FB post by Nikkita Oliver:
News Flash. This just in!
Black folx are not monolithic.
So is it surprising there are at least three groups in Seattle claiming to be Black Lives Matter Seattle? Nah, it's not surprising.
Reality Check. There are more than two BLM founders in Seattle BUT that shit doesn't really matter. It's a movement not built on ego or founders but on the principal of liberty and equity for all black peoples. So you ain't gotta agree but you should respect the diversity of tactics. Do your part for black liberation in the way you feel purposed. This will serve the movement much better than your ego ever will.
They had some points. And a really terrible communications strategy. Everyone was pissed.
If people are talking about the very complex relationship between white's in the left and black power and how to reconcile those two components and their sometime differing needs, maybe this did accomplish something. I think the vitriol could be applied a little more evenly but maybe people are targeting Sanders because they see something worth trying to engage? That's speculation but I might hope that it is in part true.
Respectfully disagree. The protestors speaking at today's rally were not interested in inclusion. They could have easily altered the tone of their message and got the crowd on their side, but they were intentionally insulting and abusive. No one there was thinking about complex race relations in the leftist movement. The chatter was more like "What the actual crap?" and "This is so bad."
Try asking yourself why you need these women to signal way ahead of time if they aren't going to stay in their lane.
This isn't about what these women did or did not signal. This is about a group of people intentionally masquerading as a second group for a specific event, then disappearing into the ether. If these women were genuinely interested in social justice, they would not have become ghosts after the demonstration. They would have spoken to the press. They would have spoken out on FB. They would have done anything other than what they have done, which is nothing.
This protest simply does not look genuine. It looks cooked, half baked, and specifically targetted to this event and person.
It is about sketchy actions, not membership cards. These women look like spooks, not activists.
Really?
BLM is a movement, People join that movement. They are then known by people within that movement. These two women aren't known by anyone in that movement at all. They didn't join any known BLM chapter (yes, the BLM movement has chapters).
What would you say these women seem like to you, given this information?
Fail.
While I completely sympathize with BLM in general, why piss on the parade of the most progressive liberal running?
I will grant you, the people that were on stage today didn't seem to want engagement. There was too much adrenaline in the confrontation. Let's stop focusing on the individuals, Bernie, organizers and whether protesters are card carrying members of BLM (who cares). Get past that and take a look at what this all means. What does the left have to take a hard look at (all lives matter, jeet chrize) and where is the opportunity to bridge between folks instead of getting more entrenched.
Oh, by the way, look at the photos from the Bernie Sanders event at Hec Ed tonight. Not your kind of people, of course, but plenty of people of color up front and center.
Good lord.
At this point I really can't blame any black person for being furious, or for feeling the need to scream and shut shit down. Maybe this is the way it has to happen.
It is also shorthand for FBI infiltrators...
Jesus, how tone deaf are you guys?
Bernie changed up his stump after NR to include BLM messaging but still falls back into addressing the race divide as being economic when it is much deeper (as witnessed by the reactions of the crowd today.) All these Bernie folks like him because he doesn't go along to get along and that he shakes things up. But when black youth do the same thing, they are chided for not sitting down and being quiet so the old white man with all the answers can speak.
And then we demand to see the "spooks'" identification. Sad.
Nobody is demanding to see anybody's credentials. Stop trying to inject that Strawman into the conversation.
But to the point about "why are they targeting the major candidate most on their side?" I think that is actually pretty good strategy. They have already caused him to talk about it, and when he does talk about it, he will probably say the right thing. He is the person they are most likely to convince to make this a part of his platform. Although I don't know what that will do for his electability. His message of economic equality resonates with independents and moderates. Even old white ones. Especially old white ones. You could argue it would be better to take the wink and nod that he is on your side and not make him compromise his electability by making it a major focus. Much like Obama and the marriage equality movement. They seemingly purposefully didn't push him on the issue because they all knew he was on their side and would push thing that direction if elected. And making him focus on it too much during the campaign might just help get someone who is actually opposed elected. But that isn't really for me to say. Either tactic is logical and valid. And I can see why people in the BLM movement don't want to settle for a wink and a nod. People are literally dying in the meantime. I think even Bernie Sanders gets it. I think that is why he didn't want the mic back. He didn't want to be the person who toke their voice away, even at an event not directly related. It will be interesting to see how Bernie handles it. He has talked about it a little bit (the protesters were factually wrong about that), but it isn't yet a major piece of his campaign. But this might keep happening if it isn't.
Your continued attempts to inject a Strawman into the conversation via your single handed drive towards mentioning identification is stale and unhelpful to the conversation.