About BLM, and flat social justice movements

[nadinbrzezinski]

There is this idea that what happened in Seattle the other day was ALL of the movement. No it wasn't. There is also this declaration from Alicia Garza, one of the founders at Fergsuon that they did not put out the petition to have the movement disavow these two women.

She wrote on facebook today (and this is her statement in full by the way):

Alicia Garza
Ok. I'm poking my head up from my vacation and then going back in the hole.

Listen yall. First, I need everyone collectively to take several deep breaths. And then, I need us to focus. For real.

There's a lot I could say about Seattle and the Sanders campaign. I'm going to keep it short. BLM is a network. 26 chapters that have relative autonomy and are connected to each other. We embrace a diversity of tactics and strategies. We aren't puppeteers telling people what to do. We respect local autonomy. It's not always clean, but it's important.

The larger movement of Black people fighting to get and stay free has also been dubbed Black Lives Matter. We didn't do that. We didn't start the movement. We are contributors to it.

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.

But I digress. And I want to say for the record:

Every one of these candidates is going to be pushed. Every. Last. One.

It's August people. There's still more than a year left.

No we did not and will not demand that those sisters apologize. That petition is not from us.

Yes there is a fake BLM page running rampant, but we gonna take care of that. And if you know who's running that fake page, I suggest, humbly, that you ask them to stop.

So I need people to chill. Stop with all this frantic speculation and madness.

The 12th trans woman was killed last week. Someone was shot last night in Ferguson on the anniversary of the murder of Michael Brown. People are STILL under siege in St. Louis. Our babies are not growing up to be adults yall. Our people cannot live with dignity and respect. People are dying. Being killed in cold blood.

Stay focused. This isn't Love and Hip Hop. This is real life. Peoples lives are at stake.

Take care of yourselves and each other. If this week has shown us anything, it's that we all we got.

We know what side we're on, and we are gonna keep this train moving. If you ain't with it, ok. Please step aside then so that we can continue to put in this work.

Back to my vacation.

For the record, when she points to the history of the Clinton campaign in 2008 and how whites said nothing when it was done to a black man. Many of us raised those concerns in 2008, and recently. But I found her raising that quite interesting and telling.

By the way her denial that she did not issue such a petition to apologize is a true statement, as far as she is concerned, She did not demand that apology, neither did others in her inner circle. And she has made some of the points in that short essay today in media interviews.

I wish some in the media would ask a tad about her "more radical writings" about progressive unity being a sham, but I learned a while ago you do not expect this from the major media. I would love to sit down with her and have a long convo of where she is coming from. Her writings tell me quite a bit of her angle, the radical feminist trans side of things. This side is one that wants to end all forms of patriarchy, not just the white power structure. If we lasted more than ten minutes, I would like to ask her the same thing I have asked from a few of our local leaders, Ok, the revolution comes, and we all succeed, what now?

As to the petition. Others did. Others in the movement who feel part of the movement and feel that what happened at Seattle was wrong. Where they white, black, brown, green? It's the internet, so really I cannot tell. But the next point is critical to understand, and people need to wrap their head around this becuase this will not be the last social movement to emerge that follows what I like to call the distributive social change model.

This is a flat social justice movement. It has no leadership. It is not unlike Occupy Wall Street, or for that matter the social justice movements that have emerged such as the Green Revolution in Iran and Tahrir Square.

They are not that different from Somos 132, or for that matter the rest of the youth movement in Mexico. It is partly a consequence of the modern internet age.

It gets worst than that. You also have divisions locally. The fighting between the Seattle folks on twitter was epic. Like OWS you could spend hours taking notes and trying to tell who is who in the zoo. Locally I know we have no black lives matter chapter, But we have two United Against Police terror who are not close allies, even though they share the same goal... don't ask, that would be too much inside baseball.

But both rely on the same cloud based, facebook, twitter model of doing things, and keeping insiders (and everybody else including the cops) in the know.

Why am I bothering to try to educate people who are not following these movements as to the nature of the movements and organization? Black Lives (and brown lives), mater. In San Diego we do not have a chapter because we have a tiny African American population. Why brown lives has been added locally in an organic manner to many of the English chants, and the Spanish chants. Here people are concerned with something that affects everybody. Police violence, California Criminal Code 182.5, schools, having the talk, hispanic kids also get it. Gasp, we have two large groups that usually do not even talk to each other working together.

And then we have our Pan African nationalist types. Our Hispanic groups, last count there are at least six and again they are not all in talking terms. We also have the OWS remnants, women Occupy is pretty active. It gets complicated if you want to keep up with who is who.

Now, this is to the few here who have been trying to use this for political advantage. STOP!

You are really not doing anybody any good. And you are presenting an image of a movement that is monolithic It's not, It's a cloud. One person may tell you one thing, another will tell you another. There is not even an attempt at consensus like the at times long and messy general assemblies of Occupy.

This alone makes the movement easy to penetrate, easy to coop, and easy to use. It also provides an out if there is a moment when somebody needs to say, no they are not part of us. That I suppose is an advantage.

Social movements are messy. And I know that social movements need allies. Some of the people who work under the rubric of OWS or BLM, or whatever comes next, will be identified as leaders. Take my word on this, local leaders hate that, because they do not want to be targeted by the police. This is partly why they are flat.

Still. this is the nature of humans. Some will do outrageous things. This does not take away from the present state of emergency directly in places like Ferguson, but quite frankly also here at Lincoln Heights or the Skyline district. In your town you have areas that you could identify. An easy short hand, urban core.

The issues that these two women brought up are real... but they also engaged in something that is common with oppressed people... and I will stop right there. Suffice it to say life is about to provide a few less than nice lessons and they may or may not learn from them. And yes, I still say some of what we are seeing are indeed dirty tricks...but the nature of the movements make it so easy to pull them off and wipe clean any tracks.

I hope this helps people understand. And for you old fogies who are thinking of the glory days of the 60s, you know who you are... think Student Non violent Coordinating Committee... even in the pre internet age, things could get hot. SNCC led to some important changes, but also to the Weather Underground. So even in the pre internet age, movements did not agree on tactics, except when presenting a unified front to both the press and outsiders, and they did spit many a times due to those disagreements. And lord knows that one had much more of a leadership.

[killbotfactory]

1. Q: Who benefits from a wedge driven inbetween progressive movements?

A: Not progressives!

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. republicans, that is the obvious one

But realize that there is a faction within BLM that eschews electoral politics, eschews the democratic (and republican) party, and would love to blow the whole system to kingdom come. What comes after is not something they have completely thought off. This makes it even easier to penetrate.

The young women in Seattle... are part of that school of thought. One of them is very religious, fundy. But she is African American so that does not particularly surprise me, Religiosity is very high among both Hispanic and AA populations. SO I give that a lot less importance than some do here.

[Supersedeas]

43. maybe everyone benefits in terms of illuminating relevant issue for all sides to address

[WestCoastLib]

3. Quality post nadinbrzezinski

I have my issues with what is going on, but this is quality stuff from you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Trust me, more than once I byte my lips

[UTUSN]

4. It's an eternal cycle: Booker T. WASHINGTON vs. W.E.B. DU BOIS all over again

*********QUOTE********

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

[font size=5] W. E. B. Du Bois
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/font]

.... In the first decade of the new century, Du Bois emerged as a spokesperson for his race, second only to Booker T. Washington.[43] Washington was the director of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and wielded tremendous influence within the African-American and white communities.[44] Washington was the architect of [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the Atlanta Compromise[/FONT], an unwritten deal he struck in 1895 with Southern white leaders who dominated state governments after Reconstruction. Essentially the agreement provided that Southern blacks, who lived overwhelmingly in rural communities, would submit to the current discrimination, segregation, disenfranchisement, and non-unionized employment; that Southern whites would permit blacks to receive a basic education, some economic opportunities, and justice within the legal system; and that Northern whites would invest in Southern enterprises and fund black educational charities.[45] ....

Du Bois was inspired to greater activism by the lynching of Sam Hose, which occurred near Atlanta in 1899.[48] Hose was tortured, burned and hung by a mob of two thousand whites.[48] When walking through Atlanta to discuss the lynching with newspaper editor Joel Chandler Harris, Du Bois encountered Hose's burned knuckles in a storefront display.[48] The episode stunned Du Bois, and he resolved that "one could not be a calm cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved."[49] Du Bois realized that "[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the cure wasn't simply telling[/FONT] people the truth, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]it was inducing them to act[/FONT] on the truth."[50]

In 1901, Du Bois wrote a review critical of Washington's book Up from Slavery,[51] which he later expanded and published to a wider audience as the essay "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" in The Souls of Black Folk.[52] One of the major contrasts between the two leaders was their approach to education: Washington felt that African-American schools should limit themselves to industrial education topics such as agricultural and mechanical skills, to prepare southern blacks for the opportunities in the rural areas where most lived.[53] But, Du Bois felt that black schools should also offer a liberal arts and academic curriculum (including the classics, arts, and humanities), because liberal arts were required to develop a leadership elite.[54] ....

[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Two calamities[/FONT] in the autumn of 1906 shocked African Americans, and contributed to strengthening support for Du Bois' struggle for civil rights to prevail over Booker T. Washington's accommodationism. First, President [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Teddy Roosevelt[/FONT] dishonorably [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]discharged 167 black soldiers because they were accused[/FONT] of crimes as a result of the Brownsville Affair. Many of the discharged soldiers had served for 20 years and were near retirement.[66] Second, in September, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]riots broke out in Atlanta, precipitated by unfounded allegations[/FONT] of black men assaulting white women. This was a catalyst for racial tensions [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]based on a job shortage and employers playing black workers against white workers[/FONT].[67] Ten thousand whites rampaged through Atlanta, beating every black person they could find, resulting in over 25 deaths.[68] In the aftermath of the 1906 violence, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Du Bois urged blacks to withdraw their support from the Republican Party[/FONT], because Republicans Roosevelt and William Howard Taft did not sufficiently support blacks. Most African Americans had been loyal to the Republican Party since the time of Abraham Lincoln.[69]

Du Bois wrote the essay, "A Litany at Atlanta", which asserted that the riot demonstrated that the Atlanta Compromise was a failure. Despite upholding their end of the bargain, blacks had failed to receive legal justice in the South.[70] Historian David Lewis has written that [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the Compromise no longer held because white patrician planters, who took a paternalistic role, had been replaced by aggressive businessmen[/FONT] who were willing [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]to pit blacks against whites[/FONT].[70] These two calamities were watershed events for the African-American community, marking the ascendancy of Du Bois' vision of equal rights. ....

*************UNQUOTE*************

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. That is a good way to put it

or the NCAAP vs Matin Luther King. People do not realize how much those two did not get alone. We are having the same issue right now.

[Egnever]

5. ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7068163

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. It was not directed at Josh

and sadly I am not, by American racial definitions, white.

And I do cover this shit like in the streets, like in go out and have coffee with people, and talk to people and learn about this.

On edit, I posted her full statement, not just a cherry picked section of it.

[Egnever]

13. Well Josh seems to disagree with you

According to him she is BLM

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. She is

part of the movement. Mrs Garza said this about the movement and incidentally about what happened in Seattle, relevant sections for your reading pleasure

There's a lot I could say about Seattle and the Sanders campaign. I'm going to keep it short. BLM is a network. 26 chapters that have relative autonomy and are connected to each other. We embrace a diversity of tactics and strategies. We aren't puppeteers telling people what to do. We respect local autonomy. It's not always clean, but it's important. .

No we did not and will not demand that those sisters apologize. That petition is not from us.

Yes there is a fake BLM page running rampant, but we gonna take care of that. And if you know who's running that fake page, I suggest, humbly, that you ask them to stop.

Did I disagree with Josh, or Mrs Garza? No. But the nature of the movement is not hierarchical. That is the point I am making here. Garza will not ask these two women to apologize. They are part of her part of the movement, But the movement is not a hierarchical organization. Nor is Mrs Garza dealign with the heat and discussion that came out of this... some of it quite loud and ugly.

What you are not likely getting is how flat this is. For all I care I could say I am part of it. As a reporter that would be silly, but this is how flat it is.

[sadoldgirl]

9. Thank you for posting this!

The flat structure makes a lot of sense considering the
dangers to the leaders, since we all know that we live
in a country full of violence.

I have observed a real disconnect between latinos and
AAs in my own neighborhood. It feels sometimes almost
like angry competition. I think that this hurts both sides more
than they realize, but I also decided that their agendas
are part of that division.

BTW,lady, do you ever get to sleep? Stay healthy will you?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I need to find any feeds from Ferguson

Oy

[cheapdate]

11. It became a significant public controvery when HRC and her campaign

even obliquely made the slightest remarks that could even in an almost implausible way have been construed as disparaging about race.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Yeah, but I noted Mrs. Garza's statement

which I found interesting.

[cheapdate]

14. I think you misunderstand me.

I'm agreeing with you. Really good post.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. THanks right now watching the feed from ferguson

thankfully it looks like a quiet night

[haikugal]

15. Thank you Nadin, I really appreciate your insight and your ability to make it comprehensible.

This could all go sideways in very bad ways and when I see people on DU using race in such crass ways (for their candidates benefit) without any concern for people's lives it really bothers me.

The FB post by Alicia Garza is very interesting given what I've been able to glean over the last few days.

Excellent!

Thanks!

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. You welcome

her writings are deep social critiques.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Yup... I watched it in real time at OWS locally

[romanic]

21. That's definitely gonna happen.

If it hasn't already.

[Oilwellian]

22. It's unfortunate that BLM local chapters can be used by nefarious characters

Just do a little digging and the real picture is laid out before you, just waiting for a spark to ignite. Discussing it almost feels taboo for fear of rocking the Titanic.

Great post. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. I have.

Some of what happened the other day has all the features of a dirty trick. The infighting in the Twitter feed and individual pages also told me the movement, as it happened to OWS, is starting to splinter along predictable lines.

This is a shame really since this is the civil rights moment of our generation.

Dirty tricks have multiple goals.

[jwirr]

38. I think that splintering is inevitable in an open group like this. Each person comes to the event

with their own set of ideas. Each carries out that scenario as they see it. It becomes a power struggle and the splinter happens. I think this one is happening a very rapid pace. Consider how long Dr. King was able to hold the non-violent perspective together before it splintered. And after it splintered how much was accomplished.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Exactly

[daredtowork]

23. WOW - Bernie in the same sentence with "racist rightwing conservative stuff"

And the wedge grows wider with the "white populists" harping on the fact that Bernie is a Jew and has been mightily offended and BLM harping on the fact that that the reaction of the crowd proves their point.

Thank you so much for bringing this perspective and allowing BLM to "talk back" to DU. I hope people are listening.

Here's another interesting mirror for you:

White member of audience: "How dare they call me a racist and a white supremacist! They don't know jack about me!"

Marissa: " I don't care about the white gaze or being "respectable" on their terms! They don't know jack about me!"

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Here is the point. It is not BLM

it is a few people within BLM. This faction wants to blow alliances...hell, the whole system.

Garza was softly prodded by Hayes today on the TV machine. I predict more prodding and perhaps even her leaving the "white media space" when things get really uncomfortable and somebody does asks harder questions. Today...those were nerF balls.

Of course, that requires people to go read her material. So I am not going to hold my breath.

[daredtowork]

30. I read a bit

Elsewhere I've been comparing BLM to the Free Speech Movement. FSM had a United Front of Republic, Democrat, and Radical student organizations. They managed to focus around their goal rather than their political ideology. They learned how to do this from a predecessor organization called Slate, which was vaguely Progressive, but it managed to unite a range of people from moderate liberals to radicals around pursuing particular goals. It had the effect of bring some goals that were once particularly associated with radicals into the mainstream.

Like BLM they believed in direct action ("politics as usual has failed&quot , diversity of tactics, and their approach was often scolded my outsiders as "ineffective" and something that would "turn people off". Yet, like BLM, they did things their way and they prevailed. They more or less invented the 60s and a lot of social freedom of the modern world as we know it today.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. To a point that is a valid comparison.

And time will tell if this is the end result. They are far less unified than the FSM, from what I have been able to tell. And locally those who have been leading have been extremely strategic and careful in what they have done. They are also extremely careful with local media.

I am an outsider to the Seattle scene...so I would be guessing as to how effective, or truly strategic,this will be in the long run in Seattle. In my town, my local scene, they would be dismissed as...well crazies. Politics is local, and that includes street theater. Ultimately this is movement street theater.

I know one if the problems they might have is the story line that they were manhandled on the stage. There are at least two different raw tapes from two different angles that show something a tad different, and that will also make a difference.

Stills are one thing...these days we have video everywhere. In this case one was at least HD quality, not fuzzy cell phone video. And as one of my local deep thinking leaders put it, always be aware of video cameras. In particular, those in the hands of media and editing software.

That is something the FSM did not have to worry that much about.

[AOR]

24. You should have posted this the other day...

instead of the completely ridiculous conspiracy theory that Seattle was a GOP plot that got over 200 embarrassing recs. At least here you somewhat understand the dynamics going on in the movement and on the ground.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. It is not ridiculous

and read carefully...it's in there.

You must be young.

[AOR]

28. It is utterly ridiculous and has no basis in facts...

the post should be deleted because you have ZERO proof of your assertions and the thread is a laughing stock. The post did nothing but stir up vindictive emotion and vicious personal attacks against the woman. Regardless of her political label she is and was a legitimate part of the BLM movement and not a "plant of the GOP." The woman in question is not an operative of the GOP to attack Bernie Sanders... period and end of story. She was protesting the non-indictment in Ferguson and other protests long before Sanders entered the picture and that information exists all over the net.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Someday you might understand the nature of dirty tricks

I am not going to teach you this though. I do not think you want to learn at this point or are ready for that. Nor will I delete it. So have a nice day.

Your personal attacks and innuendo are what is quite the laughing stock, to use your own words. Those of us who have been around the block a few times know what we are seeing...and also know the tracks are easy to erase due to the nature of what we are dealing with.

Though I suppose you will say the other, far more obvious, dirty tricks that have happened in the last ten years also never happened. As I wrote, you must be young.

[AOR]

32. It is you that is engaging in the personal Nadin...

by saying you "must be young." I can assure you my blue-collar sometimes lumpen group street cred is more than enough to detect rank bullshit when I see it. And that's about all I'm gonna mention of myself personally here or anywhere else I post. It's not about me, you, or personalities. You should understand that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. When you attack

you are surprised at getting a response? Look, I recommend you use the ignore button. I really urge you, for your own health. I will not follow you around. I recommend you stop doing that.

As to your blue collar lumpen street cred, I smell bullshit, piles of it...you are very correct. And it is coming from your general direction. What I smell is a person who got their hands on a slew of a particular set of writings, reminds me of myself before college and well life, and has refused to expand horizons beyond that point.

Have a good night.

[AOR]

35. Again...leftist politics is not about what you or I think or a personality contest....

leftist politics is about power and resources and who controls what and why. What you view as attacks are not attacks at all. They are critiques. You are attacking the messenger - and trying to marginalize those who disagree with your theories - rather than the message. I understand your passion as I find myself attacking the messenger rather than the message from time to time. Later Nadin.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. The 1950s called, they would like their talking points back

oy...

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. kick

[mmonk]

37. Very well written.

I will remember you. You are an asset here. Thanks.

[seveneyes]

40. It only takes one broken arrow

Te spear the heart of a noble innocent.

We are all Children of the lord after all ...

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. But as more and more flat movements come up

one has to take this into account.

[seveneyes]

42. Yes, and I hold my head high