#BlackLivesMatter is not about Bernie Sanders. It's about black lives.
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by TM99 (a host of the Bernie Sanders group).
To reduce the whole issue to nothing more than a "meme" is truly heartless, arrogant and grotesque.
To suggest that black protesters are unwitting pawns of right wing tacticians... or left-wing tacticians... well, that's some of the most racist, supremacist crap imaginable.
I've been white all my life, and a Democrat just about as long.
But what I've seen and heard from purported progressives the last few days has me feeling ashamed on BOTH counts.
Forfucksake, not everything is centered on us and our latest political calculus.
Black lives matter because black lives matter, not because of how the notion makes us feel about our prospects in an election year.
Not even when the movement makes its presence felt on a stage we assumed belonged to us, and us only.
Is that so hard to understand?
If it is too hard, then I encourage us to stop campaigning for Sen. Sanders entirely.
Because we're sure not doing him any favors by perpetuating this image of self-absorbed, bubble-dwelling, Beltway-beholden white liberals.
But if we really are willing to look beyond the ends of our own noses... if we really are committed to doing the work of Democratic coalition-building... then why don't we start by actually LISTENING to the people we'd like to see get on board with our candidate, whichever candidate we prefer?
Maybe even acknowledging that they have something valid to say, even if it's not listed on our own, inward-gazing strategy sheets?
I'll tell you, that's a much better gamble than hoping people will vote for someone whose supporters, they're daily persuaded, are complete assholes.
Remember years ago when LGBT was "the new Black?"
Yeah, that was a pretty specious claim back then. And even more so now, when it's obvious Black is the same Black, and has been right along.
Yet here we are years later, when advances in LGBT rights are counted among Pres. Obama's finest accomplishments.
Believe me, that didn't happen because of irritable Democrats who dismissed the topic with their talk of ponies and "poutrage."
It happened DESPITE them.
If Sen. Sanders wins the party nomination, it sure won't be because of his supporters trying to shout down #BLM, either.
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