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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThree assclowns break up an event in Seattle
And a few people here lap it up. To the credit of the membership here, most reject this nonsense.
I question whether these fools had anything to do with BLM. None of them tried to address the crowd, to speak eloquently about the hundreds of men who have lost their lives needlessly at the hands of killer cops. They were only interested in stopping the event by yelling and threatening people.
I suspect this was a paid political operation using Saul Alinsky-type tactics. You saw similar tactics by Republicans in Florida in 2000.
Who benefits? Not black people. Not progressives. Who?
still_one
(92,502 posts)Depaysement
(1,835 posts)But it makes you wonder. They get the mic. Why aren't they talking about police brutality, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, etc.
still_one
(92,502 posts)and a few people jumped on stage, and demanded the microphone to talk about an entirely different subject, what would the reaction be?
Stepping into the shoes of someone else works both ways
pnwmom
(109,024 posts)The activists demanded 4½ minutes of silence in memory of Brown, to symbolize the 4½ hours his body lay on a Ferguson street. While rally organizers raised their hands in support, some in the crowd yelled profanities.
After the few minutes of silence, the protesters said they wanted to confront Sanders for failing to address their concerns when he was similarly interrupted at a town hall for liberal activists in Phoenix last month. Johnson beckoned Sanders to stand closer as she spoke he refused.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)Glenn Beck much?
Good luck calling people assclowns.
stranger81
(2,345 posts)and "screaming white racists."
djean111
(14,255 posts)Bernie every chance they get.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Stiffling freedom of speech is so unAmerican.
juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Can't have it both ways.
pnwmom
(109,024 posts)bvf
(6,604 posts)I've questioned the reactionary nature of some responses I've read around here this evening. Seems everyone has a finger at the ready, a lot of them ready to point wrong.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)The main BLM-Seattle page has disavowed this action: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=589710071167552&id=523804057758154
People need to stop acting crazy here. All the tone-policing and sobs of how Black people don't deserve Bernie are hardly unifying either.
Behind the Aegis
(54,053 posts)To be honest, I am surprised it hasn't become even more obvious.
6chars
(3,967 posts)pnwmom
(109,024 posts)Black Lives Matter Seattle organizers and supporters take over Bernie Sanders rally at Westlake on Saturday, August 8, 2015.
Today BLM Seattle, with the support of other Black organizers and non-Black allies and accomplices, held Bernie Sanders publicly accountable for his lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and his blatantly silencing response to the #SayHerName #IfIDieInPoliceCustody action that took place at Netroots this year.
Bernies arrival in Seattle is largely significant in the context of the state of emergency Black lives are in locally as well as across America. The Seattle Police Department has been under federal consent decree for the last three years and has been continually plagued by use-of-force violations and racist scandals amongst their rank and file. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has refused to push any reform measures for police accountability, not even the numerous recommendations of his self-appointed Community Police Commission. The Seattle School District suspends Black students at a rate six times higher than their white counterparts, feeding Black children into the school-to-prison pipeline. King County has fought hard to push through a plan to build a $210 million new youth jail to imprison these children, amid intense community criticism and dissent. The Central District, a historically Black neighborhood in Seattle, has undergone rapid gentrification over the past few decades, with Black people being displaced from the only neighborhood that we could legally live in until just years ago. While white men profit off of the legalization of marijuana, our prisons are still filled with Black people who are over-incarcerated for drug offenses.
This city is filled with white progressives, which is why Bernie Sanders camp was obviously expecting a friendly and consenting audience for todays campaign visit. The problem with Sanders, and with white Seattle progressives in general, is that they are utterly and totally useless (when not outright harmful) in terms of the fight for Black lives. While we are drowning in their liberal rhetoric, we have yet to see them support Black grassroots movements or take on any measure of risk and responsibility for ending the tyranny of white supremacy in our country and in our city. This willful passivity while claiming solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement in an effort to be relevant is over. White progressive Seattle and Bernie Sanders cannot call themselves liberals while they participate in the racist system that claims Black lives. Bernie Sanders will not continue to call himself a man of the people, while ignoring the plight of Black people. Presidential candidates will not win Black votes without putting out an explicit criminal justice reform package. As was said at the Netroots action, presidential candidates should expect to be shut down and confronted every step along the way of this presidential campaign. Black people are in a state of emergency. Lines have been drawn in the sand. You are either fighting continuously and measurably to protect Black life in America, or you are a part of the white supremacist system that we will tear down in the liberation of our people.
On this, nearly the one year anniversary of the ruthless murder of Mike Brown, we honor Black lives lost by doing the unthinkable, the unapologetic, and the unrespectable. Out of radical love for our Black brothers and sisters, we put our lives and our bodies on the line to testify to their persecution and resilience. We join together in Black love to #SayHerName and declare that #BlackLivesMatter, understanding that our love will disrupt the complicity and corruption of our anti-Black society; GOP, Democrat, and otherwise.
There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost. We will ensure this by any means necessary.
With the strength of our ancestors and for the future of our children,
Black Lives Matter Seattle Co-Founders
Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)shifting around in the Seattle FB pages in the last few hours.
At any rate, the OP is still ridiculous, and the posters claiming that Hillary and George Soros are in on this don't know much about protestors.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Yeah, we get it: the presidential campaign (and everything else) is all about you. It simply must be everyone's absolute top priority, the only words on their lips. Or we're racists...
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Clearly you have no idea who he is, what he believed, or what he did.
Depaysement
(1,835 posts)I did. I also read someone's thesis on him. That's why I used his name.
I know exactly what he did and I admire the man's life and work.
pnwmom
(109,024 posts)They're asking all the candidates to come up with plans for reforming the criminal justice system, which is killing black people and imprisoning them in high numbers.
Instead of telling them to shut up, why not join with them in asking all the candidates to work on this?
O'Malley already has. The others should, too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-black-lives-matter_55c68f14e4b0923c12bd197e
"Bernie, you were confronted at NetRoots at by black women," Johnson said. "You have yet to put out a criminal justice reform package like OMalley did."
https://www.facebook.com/BLMSeattle/posts/716844418437393
Presidential candidates will not win Black votes without putting out an explicit criminal justice reform package. As was said at the Netroots action, presidential candidates should expect to be shut down and confronted every step along the way of this presidential campaign
Are_grits_groceries
(17,111 posts)It is demeaning and uncalled for. You may consider their actions wrong and misguided. However, labelling them like that just alienates people. Anybody in another BLM group that might take issue with them will look at your pronouncement as an attack on all.
If they are political operatives, and that has yet to be proven, give them the benefit of the doubt in being sincere. Attack what they did. Don't be personl.
mythology
(9,527 posts)Assclown has none of the connotation of calling somebody a racist, especially given Sanders being Jewish and his family history with the Holocaust.
Vinca
(50,326 posts)BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)I'm going to send him some money too, for the first time. I've got a little left over this month.
Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Depaysement
(1,835 posts)mnhtnbb
(31,416 posts)ladjf
(17,320 posts)and organized , reasonable political event, then all of Bernie's future events are at risk. There is something fishy about what's going on here. Further, why is Bernie the only target?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)unless they are pre-screened and prepped props for photo ops a la the Chimp. After all, there are millionaires and billionaires - important people IOW- to cut deals with.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Looks like they aren't interested in getting their message out...just disrupting someone else's message. Follow the money.
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)My spidey senses are picking up a vibe here.
Bernie handled it well, no support for him will be lost due to the protest.
#FeelTheBern
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Breaking up that event was a stupid, counterproductive, wrong-headed thing to do. Horribly screwing up their targeting does their cause no fucking good at all.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Depaysement
(1,835 posts)Check out the above. Another opportunist ready to "help" African-Americans.
JTFrog
(14,274 posts)AzDar
(14,023 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)It screams dirty trick. And some here cannot or refuse to see what a blatant, phony divide-and-conquer stunt this is.
Who benefits? HRH and the DNC would seem to be numbers One and Two on the list.