When Bernie Sanders stood before the packed-in crowd of mostly white liberals and their children at the Comet Tavern last Saturday, you never would have guessed he’d just been screamed at by Black Lives Matter activists. The disruption ultimately caused Sanders to leave Westlake Park without speaking on the issues he was there to address—Social Security and Medicare, also known as earned benefits—which dismayed the event organizers, angered Sanders supporters, and inspired some supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The calm, comfortable scene at the Comet couldn’t have been more different than the tense scene at Westlake Park. I was eight feet from the Westlake stage when Sanders opened his speech to a crowd of thousands by thanking Seattle for being one of the most progressive cities in the United States. At that moment, Mara Jacqueline Willaford, an activist with Black Lives Matter Seattle, raised her fist into the air. Then she and Marissa Johnson, also an activist with BLM-Seattle, got onstage and yelled at Sanders until he gave up the mic…
