August 10, 2015

Marissa Janae Johnson spoke to Elon James White about why she disrupted Bernie Sanders' rally in Seattle, and why she thinks white liberals have a serious race problem.

I've set it to start at the point about eight minutes in where she begins to talk about the reaction she received from white liberals.

Also for your consideration, other perspectives.

From Pramila Jayapal, a State Senator in Washington State, Why Saturday's Bernie Sanders Rally Left Me Feeling Heartbroken.

Joshua Holland writes:

BLM is leveraging the intense media coverage of a presidential campaign to get their message across. And if they protested a right-winger who had an awful record on civil rights, or, to a lesser degree, the Democratic frontrunner (whose husband has a mixed record on these issues, to say the least), it would be a dog-bites-man story.

They are getting an enormous amount of attention specifically because they're a movement of the left targeting a candidate who is broadly perceived as a champion of the left. That's man-bites-dog. That gets you coverage.

Read his whole post. It's excellent.

Alicia Garza of BLM, from Facebook:

I'm really disappointed in some of the commentary I've read from "allies." The two sisters who did the action have received all kinds of vitriol. It's unfair and un-necessary. And some of you should actually be ashamed of yourselves. Like really and truly.

I've also received some really hateful stuff, from Sanders supporters, that looks a lot like the racist right wing conservative stuff we get all the time. Some man demanded that I apologize on behalf of all Black people everywhere. So racist. So so so racist. I mean--people. What in the hell is happening?

Here's the thing: what this last week has shown me (actually confirmed for me) is that populism can be really dangerous and tend rightward. Pay attention to these reactions. White people never rose up so much for a white candidate. Not even when Clinton ran one of the most racist campaigns against Obama in 2008. And the right has been silent but don't mistake silent for being inactive. Marinate on that for a minute.

Food for thought.

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