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[1StrongBlackMan]

It was these years of experience that made the much discussed disruption of a mostly white rally in Seattle featuring Bernie Sanders by #blacklivesmatter activists last Saturday of such interest to me. The disruption catalyzed an exaggerated version of the same racial dynamics that loomed large in nearly every struggle I have been involved in in the Northwest. And, as usual, to no good end.

Moreover, the discussion following that incident feels like it’s turned into a referendum on a whole movement, bordering even on a contest over the primacy of race or class in progressive politics; a contest that has been waged since, well, forever in terms relevant to this moment. All that incited by two Black women, just two, saying something that we should be listening to if we really do believe that Black lives matter, no matter how or to whom they said it, and maybe especially for just those reasons.

We should be listening if we are concerned about the crisis of racism in America because acting on that concern must begin with consideration of our own racism. And isn’t that the demand that angered folks the most?

If we don’t begin there, we are misunderstanding how deeply rooted and ubiquitous racism is in America. We are a profoundly racist state, founded upon native genocide and race slavery, divided by a civil war fought over the simple proposition that Black people are human beings, and today, still, a country deeply divided over issues that disproportionately affect people of color – issues like immigration, mass incarceration, drug criminalization, Islamophobia, the so-called war on terror, welfare, food stamps, educational equity, Obamacare (on which the deepest divisions are in the blackest states of the South). And the list goes on.

In such a state, do we really suppose that racism is only a problem of other people?

http://www.racefiles.com/2015/08/13/the-bernie-sanders-kerfuffle-blacklivesmatter-and-white-progressive-colorblindess/

Courtesy of one, Sister Bravenak.