Black in Seattle - 4 hrs ·

Hello. My name is Nikki and this will be my first time posting on this page under it's new name. I would like to address all points of confusion with my page as well as my thoughts on yesterday's rally.

1.) I started this page under the name Black Lives Matter Seattle with out realizing I had to check with the official chapter members of Seattle and the national network. The name has since been changed to Black in Seattle

2.) The two women that were at the rally yesterday were actually members of BLM Seattle

3.) I have spoken to them and as far as I know, they are not conspirators with any other democratic candidates or the GOP

4.) I personally support Bernie Sanders. But I can not apologize for them or speak for them about what happened yesterday and they have not apologized

Ok, now that that those points are cleared up, I would like to talk about the reasoning behind the interruption. I can see that there are thousands of you who have viewed my page and a lot of you have written in to show your displeasure about it. I was watching MSNBC this morning and women from BLM really shed some light on what happened. This is not the first time a candidate has been interrupted on stage by BLM and it won't likely be the last. Those women, like many others, are on the front lines of a movement. They are trying to send a message to the candidates that their sympathy is not enough. There needs to be some real change. It may have looked rude to many, but the message must be sent through whatever means necessary and every opportunity must been taken (even if the delivery was poor). Please, let go of your anger towards the women and direct it towards police brutality. Do not let yourself be distracted from the deaths!! People are still dying!! Every28 hours there is another death. THAT is what truly should disgust you. Not everything in a movement can be perfect. But our allegiance to them must still be strong. I still support BLM and I think you all should too.

Mark Kessinger Nikki, I am a strong supporter of the cause(s) BLM is fighting for. I appreciate what you say about the importance of staying focused on the issues and on the message BLM is trying to send, and about the imperfect nature of any movement. Those are very good points. But while it is often unfair the way the actions of a few members can taint the perceptions of an entire organization or movement. Any experienced activist will tell you that while passion for a cause is critical to its success, so also is remembering the critical importance of the method by and context in which a movement sends its message: that is, how, where, when and to whom the message is sent.

These two women shut down an important appearance by the ONE candidate in this race who has actually put himself on the line in the cause for civil rights. He is the ONE candidate who, not only during this race but throughout his political career, has consistently spoken out on issues such as police brutality and economic injustice -- both of which are issues that are not exclusively issues of race, but which play out disproportionately along racial lines. In this race, he is the ONLY one talking about youth unemployment, especially among African American and Latino youth. Thus, to shut down a candidate like Bernie Sanders, whose candidacy is already thought by many to be a long shot against extremely well-funded opponents both in the primary and, if he is nominated, in the general election, is simply inexcusable. After all, he won't be able to do anything if he isn't elected.

You say he isn't the first nor the last to be challenged by BLM. Okay, yes, they also did something similar to O'Malley, another progressive. But to date they have given all 17 of the GOP candidates a pass. And that fact, by itself, undermines the excuses being offered for the action against Sanders.

The allegations by some that these two women were political operatives paid by Hillary, or the Koch brothers, or the GOP are telling, because they indicate that people really _want_ to believe the best about the BLM movement, and had a hard time believing that BLM had actually sanctioned this action. It was actually easier to believe they were paid operators rather than that their actions genuinely spoke for the BLM movement. But, I should point out, we still don't know that they weren't political operatives. It's not like they would tell you if they were.

Look, these two women did something all human beings do at one time or another: they screwed up, and big time. For the sake of their own credibility and that of BLM, and more importantly for the sake of the success of the fight against the very issues BLM is fighting against, they should acknowledge their error and apologize.

I agree entirely with @Kim Sisto Robinson that this is about more than one animal. But I wouild go even a step further. For many (including myself), the intensity of our anger stems in part also from the selfish, entitled arrogance of this well-to-do dentist, and from the fact that, for many people around the world, he will be seen as being representative of white, Northern European and American culture. Now, it is true this guy is probably not representative of most of us. But we can hardly blame those who will see him as such, because this man's entitled arrogance, his apparent belief that his money should entitle him to be as reckless and cavalier towards the world's biological riches as he wishes, partakes of the mindset that typified the imperial/colonial mindset of European and American societies for much of the past 600 years concerning the biological, botanical, mineral and even human riches of the other countries of the world. Everything was ours for the taking, so it seemed. That imperial/colonial mindset has been directly responsible for plunder and exploitation of the natural world that has wreaked incalculable environmental despoliation across the globe. But much of whatever 'benefit' of that global plunder has been disproportionately enjoyed by those of us who had the good fortune to be born in North America or Western Europe.

The civilized among us recognize that our lives of relative comfort were purchased at a terrible price -- a price paid not by us nor, for the most part, by our ancestors, but by those people and other creatures who had the misfortune to be born outside of Imperial Europe or one of Imperial Europe's direct progeny. While we cannot alter history, we can recognize that the relative privilege and comfort we enjoy also carries with it a unique burden of responsibility by those of us who are its beneficiaries to exercise special care and concern for the world's natural riches. And to see someone be so cavalier and irresponsible as this dentist was -- someone who seems to be a present-day incarnation of the worst excesses and abuses of our imperial/colonial past -- it's almost more than we can bear.