Why are Black Lives Matter activists disrupting Bernie Sanders' appearances and what effects?

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Robert Reich put it best when he wrote about the first time Bernie was confronted with Black Lives Matter activists in Arizona:

Black lives matter.

But it would be a terrible mistake for the progressive movement to split into a “Black lives matter” movement and an “economic justice” movement.

This would only play into the hands of the right.

For decades Republicans have exploited the economic frustrations of the white working and middle class to drive a wedge between races, channeling those frustrations into bigotry and resentment.

The Republican strategy has been to divide-and-conquer. They want to prevent the majority of Americans – poor, working class, and middle-class, blacks, Latinos, and whites – from uniting in common cause against the moneyed interests.

We must not let them.

Now unlike some unhinged posters here with unsupportable claims of conspiracies, I won’t say that the Right are behind the attacking by activists of the one candidate who might really be on their side.

Although the gleeful articles from the Right Wing blogosphere show that they love it, I think that short-sighted people on the left are perfectly capable of fucking things up on their own without any assistance.

That said, we are talking about a handful of people here. There is a lot of dissent from within BLM ranks about the Bernie Sanders ambushes. Take the outliers of any political or social movement and you’ll find people who are not indicative of most members, but who are a lot better at getting attention.

I think all of that is in play here.

I also think there’s a vocal minority of black people who see Bernie as just another old white dude and they’re pretty much sick of them.

And for as well-intentioned as Bernie Sanders is, his experience as an old white guy causes him to be clumsy when addressing some of these issues. I also think he’s a little idealistic.

When host George Stephanopoulos asked why he performed so anemically with non-white voters in a recent poll (Sanders received just 3% support, versus Hillary Clinton’s 91%), Sanders chalked it up to a lack of “understanding” from black voters:

SANDERS: I have a long history in fighting for civil rights. I understand that many people in the African-American community may not understand that.

Sanders decided to tell Stephanopoulos that black voters would love him if they just understood things better, an idea that is uncomfortably similar to the conclusion reached by the Republican Party’s infamous 2012 “autopsy report,” and an echo of the GOP’s point man on minority outreach, Rand Paul.

Sanders’ argument, that the policies he advocates for everyone should also be particularly attractive to black and Hispanic voters, is an approach that is favored by politicians who take minority votes for granted, as well as those who take for granted that they won’t get those votes.

Sanders has long emphasized winning white voters by deliberately avoiding what he considers “demographic stuff” in favor of economic issues.

SANDERS: But that’s not important. You should not be basing your politics based on your color. What you should be basing your politics on is, how is your family doing?

Substantively, Sanders’ philosophy misses the point that many of those “demographic” issues are economic issues.

I wouldn’t go as far as the writer of the piece that I quoted above that Sanders has made a "he has made the calculation that focusing on those issues loses him more ‘white working-class’ support than it would gain him among non-white voters. I think Sanders doesn’t think in those terms.

I think he is a little naive… Not so much that he’ll go all #AllLivesMatter on people, but enough so that he fails to see that his steadfast view that racial inequality can be dealt with through his economic theories - even though he’s likely correct! - makes him seem like someone who is denying there’s a problem. He’s not. He just thinks there’s a different way to address the problem. But that’s not good enough for some people evidently.

This all bums me out because I am a big Sanders supporter as well as someone who decries the institutional racism that is still inherent in American society so I am of course sympathetic to BLM. I think they should work together and I think Bernie would be fine with that. But people get more attention through yelling than understanding.

(Sorry if this post rambles… It’s all stream of consciousness about several subjects I care and think deeply about. Don’t know if I made my points that well. But I have to go to sleep so I’m sure someone will point out where I made a complete mess of whatever thesis I was trying to trot out. )

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Measure_for_Measure

Sorry, but no. Ezra Klein: [INDENT]There are inconsistencies in Wilson’s story. He estimates that Brown ran 20-30 feet away from the car and then charged another 10 feet back towards Wilson. But we know Brown died 150 feet away from the car.[/INDENT] More: Officer Darren Wilson's story is unbelievable. Literally. | Vox

I can see why the Justice Department might not want to die on this particular hill: arguably they were wise to shift focus to widespread and systemic problems in local judicial practices. But the “Virtually all evidence” claim is false.

In retrospect, the statement should have been qualified far more explicitly, but it remains the case that on the biggest points-ie whether Brown was facing Wilson or not when shot or whether Brown tried to reach for Wilson’s firearm the evidence favours Wilson.

[adaher]

The flaw in Robert Reich’s thinking is, are the cops the moneyed interests? Are CEOs responsible for racism, or the small shop owners? It’s all well and good for wealthy liberals to say “people like me” should be taxed more. But are Robert Reich’s friends’ the primary cause of race problems in this country? Will Robert Reichs’ social circle paying higher taxes make it less likely that Cornell West gets arrested trying to get into his own home?

The reason racism and economic justice do not overlap completely is precisely because most racism, even institutional racism, is a primarily middle and lower class phenomenon. Bill Gates isn’t keeping African-Americans from economic opportunities, it’s the school teachers who think they can’t achieve and so don’t try, and the small business owners who want them to “buy and leave!” and the police who think that they are perps just because they stepped outside that day.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@adaher

As a kid, you can act like everything is possible all at once and that you can prioritize everything at once. I have no doubt that Sanders believes in equality and civil rights. But things have changed. The issues aren’t as clear cut as they used to be. Okay, we have a police brutality problem. How does a President help on that issue? More prosecutions I guess, but has Obama been derelict in that regard? All of the major investigations have failed to find evidence to bring officers to trial. It’s a problem that can only be solved locally, and since African-Americans can vote, they need to use their political power to hold people accountable, and that means voting out Democrats who won’t rein in the police in favor of Republicans who will. But they don’t want to hear that, they want one guy to just make it all better.

Sanders is focused on an issue he CAN do something about as President. And the issue he considers most important. The environment, civil rights, immigration, guns, that’s all second tier stuff. Sanders should be lauded for his maturity. Most candidates act like they’ll do everything, but in the real world you have to set priorities.

No, a president who cared might be able to have an effect on racial justice issues. The 4th Amendment has all but been discarded by the Supreme Court where the War on Drugs is concerned, giving police carte blanche to search anyone, on the flimsiest pretext, for drugs. Going back to Reagan, the effect has been than police departments target minorities for random searches (ever heard of driving while black?) and then throw the book at them when they get lucky and discover any amount of drugs. For some types of sweeps, 98% of people searched turn out to be innocent.

The drug war can easily be viewed as a backlash against civil rights victories to impose a new system of control over minorities- look how hard they are trying to criminalize black people, when only 1 out of 50 people stopped and searched is carrying contraband, and frequently just a bit of marijuana at that. A president could call a lot of attention to this state of affairs, and surely take steps to strengthen the 4th Amendment in this country.

Local issue? I don’t know, maybe. The war on drugs is federally funded though- get the feds out of it and you go a long way towards solving the problem. I realize the war on drugs is a little different issue than police brutality, but I believe they are linked.

[BrainGlutton]

@DerekMichaels00

boo hoo. His typical supporters are the far-left ivory tower champagne socialists.

Sanders to speak at Liberty University.

[asahi]

@adaher

The reason racism and economic justice do not overlap completely is precisely because most racism, even institutional racism, is a primarily middle and lower class phenomenon. Bill Gates isn’t keeping African-Americans from economic opportunities, it’s the school teachers who think they can’t achieve and so don’t try, and the small business owners who want them to “buy and leave!” and the police who think that they are perps just because they stepped outside that day.

Google Donald Sterling and then come back to this thread and let us know if you still believe that racism is still a middle and lower class phenomenon. That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a while.

[asahi]

@Wesley_Clark

Also that pisses me off that they demanded 4 minutes of silence. Michael Brown attacked a cop, tried to take his gun and got shot after ignoring many efforts by the officer in question to tell him to give up. If you want to put up a black person as a victim of out of control cops use Eric garner or Tamir Rice (not that police abuse is limited to blacks, cops abuse lots of people however blacks get a disproportionate amount of it). Those people were victims of out of control cops. Michael brown doesn’t deserve 4 minutes of silence, and anyone demanding that for him is a douche.

If Sanders lets himself be pushed around by these douchebags he is going to make it hard for anyone to think he would have the backbone to be president.

+1

That, to me, is the story that has never really been talked about in the mainstream, probably because they’re more interested in controversy than in the actual exploration of the complex issue of race, class, and the interplay of those factors in law enforcement.

But like you, I really wish activists, whoever they are, would use someone other than Michael Brown as the poster boy. I don’t have a problem with the fact that Brown was at times a mischievous kid. Trayvon Martin was, too, but I see the two cases differently. Martin, who was really doing nothing but minding his own business on the way back to his residence, was a real victim, IMO. Mike Brown, on the other hand, was anything but.

I think that’s the problem I see: just because you have an unarmed black man killed at the hands of an armed white guy doesn’t in and of itself mean that the dead black guy is somehow this innocent victim. His behavior’s a factor. Anyone who gets violent with an armed cop is asking for trouble, especially in this country where cops regularly encounter armed felons and have to make split-second decisions about whether to defend themselves or not.

None of that is to say that people in black communities don’t have legitimate grievances to make - I think they absolutely do. I think they have a lot of legitimate complaints. But please, choose the poster children carefully.

[astorian]

Bernie Sanders isn’t responsible for the actions of protestors, but he looks bad for backing down and letting them drive him off the stage.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@astorian

Bernie Sanders isn’t responsible for the actions of protestors, but he looks bad for backing down and letting them drive him off the stage.

How much better would he have looked if he had directed people to apprehend and silence the BLM folks?

Mr. Sanders was in a bad situation through no fault or action of his own and IMO he took the least confrontational way out, which also happened to be the smartest way out.

[astorian]

@Snowboarder_Bo

How much better would he have looked if he had directed people to apprehend and silence the BLM folks?

Mr. Sanders was in a bad situation through no fault or action of his own and IMO he took the least confrontational way out, which also happened to be the smartest way out.

Maybe. But if a guy won’t stand up to a few rowdies, who’s going to trust him to stand up to Putin or Netanyahu?

[Uniqueorn]

@astorian

Maybe. But if a guy won’t stand up to a few rowdies, who’s going to trust him to stand up to Putin or Netanyahu?

While I applaud your choice of international rowdies, I think it depends on for whom you stand up for. I rarely stand up for myself, but stand up fiercely for my loved ones.

[asahi]

@astorian

Maybe. But if a guy won’t stand up to a few rowdies, who’s going to trust him to stand up to Putin or Netanyahu?

Is Putin or Netanyahu going to take his microphone away at the State of the Union address WWE style?

I mean, that would actually be kinda funny I suppose, but it’s not likely.

[doorhinge]

@Snowboarder_Bo

The article later says that this isn’t the first time BLM activists have done this; somehow I missed the stream of articles noting it happening last month during an event in Phoenix, AZ.

Why has Mr. Sanders been singled out for this and what do the BLM folks hope to accomplish with their actions?

The Black Lives Matters activists appear to be racists who hate white people. I’m under the impression that Bernie Sanders qualifies as a white person.

[Kolak_of_Twilo]

@astorian

Maybe. But if a guy won’t stand up to a few rowdies, who’s going to trust him to stand up to Putin or Netanyahu?

Anybody capable of seeing the difference between the behavior of the few rowdies in question and the behavior of Putin or Netanyahu.

In other words, most people.

[BrainGlutton]

@doorhinge

The Black Lives Matters activists appear to be racists who hate white people.

:rolleyes:

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@doorhinge

The Black Lives Matters activists appear to be racists who hate white people.

What have you read, heard or seen that makes you think that?

[XT]

@doorhinge

The Black Lives Matters activists appear to be racists who hate white people. I’m under the impression that Bernie Sanders qualifies as a white person.

What a complete load of horseshit. :rolleyes:

The answer to the title of the OP is fairly simple really…the activists were disrupting Sanders big speech to get their message out and to make folks aware of the issue. They aren’t ‘racists who hate white people’, they are people who want to spread the message that should be easy enough to grasp, but incredibly isn’t…that black peoples lives matter too, and that as a society we’ve become shockingly desensitized to black deaths. And that this needs to end. This is something that black people themselves need to really believe, in their hearts…that their lives DO matter. And white (and asians, and hispanics, and everyone else) people need to believe in their hearts that black lives matter as well. Everyone needs to grasp this concept deep down where it counts and we need to shake off the apathy.

[Enderw24]

@DerekMichaels00

boo hoo. His typical supporters are the far-left ivory tower champagne socialists.

Why would Sanders hold a rally in the Northeast of France? I doubt there would be that many US citizens or registered voters there.

[Rick_Kitchen]

Turns out the two women who interrupted the Sanders rally are not #BlackLivesMatter associates at all, but had just coopted the name for whatever purposes they had. One of them is, in fact, a wacko with weird religious comments on her Facebook page. Not saying that anybody who’s religious puts weird comments on their Facebook page, but hers were wacko whether the comments were religious or political.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@astorian

Maybe. But if a guy won’t stand up to a few rowdies, who’s going to trust him to stand up to Putin or Netanyahu?

So you expect Putin to jump on the stage and steal his mic? No? Then maybe it’s a different thing. In fact, can you point out the “presidential” way to handle people bum-rushing his mic?