One of the basic ideals of the Occupy movement was that a person should be allowed to speak in his/her turn. I agree very much with BLM's right to protest and with the cause it stands for. But I object to any group that protests so as to completely silence others. That is the method of fascists. Discussion. Dialogue. Taking your turn. Great.
But shutting off a speaker who is scheduled to speak. No. And that is pretty much what was done to O'Malley at Netroots Nation. (Bernie's speech was delayed by the lengthy demonstration but he managed to speak. O'Malley was pretty much silenced, could only get in very little of his scheduled statement.)
I think that Bernie Sanders handled the BLM issue very well in his Los Angeles rally. And the Sanders supporters wildly supported the BLM agenda and points presented by Symone Sanders.
I still maintain that it was not necessary for BLM to present itself as somehow opposing or needing to force its way on the stage at Netroots Nation and the Seattle Sanders presentation. Sanders has supported the rights of African-Americans since the 1960s, has never given up that support, and it was ignorant on the part of the leadership of BLM to think they needed to force their way on the stage to make it look like Bernie Sanders opposed them. Just a cheap trick.
I would also like to add that I and many other white people like me, social workers, nurses, lawyers, teachers, ministers, people in helping professions, have worked and sacrificed to further the interests of Black people. We have visited prisons, hospitals, represented and advocated for racial justice and the BLM movement and many DJUers insult the work that we have tirelessly done for Black people with their accusation that all white people are racists.
I wish they could know the sacrifices that my family has made for generations to support racial equality, the end of slavery and equal justice. (Done for religious reasons because my family was Methodist and John Wesley strongly opposed slavery.)
I will never forget the impression that my great-grandfather made on me. He accompanied his father when is father, who had fled Germany after the Revolution of 1848 there, joined the Union army to fight against slavery. My great-grandfather, still officially a boy and not recognized as a soldier ran reconnaissance and caught a bullet in his leg in the process. He carried the burden of that injury until he died at the age of 98 after doing the hard work of a farmer for most of his life.
On the other side of my family, my mother still had the fragment of correspondence between one of my ancestors and his son. The son was fighting in the Civil War and had gone AWOL saying he did not want to die just to free the slaves. My ancestor, the father of that AWOL soldier wrote back and told his son that he had to go back and fight. The son died in the Civil War. Imagine the pain the father felt having told his son to go back and fight against slavery when he learned of his son's death. White Union soldiers died, many, many of them, to free black people from slavery. While the debt owed by white people for the crime of slavery is great, the debt owed by black people for the deaths of Union soldiers who lost their lives for the Union and to free the slaves is also great and should not be forgotten. When a young man dies to improve the life of someone he has never met, of a race he has perhaps only glimpsed because of his father's abhorrence of slavery, those who benefited from that death should certainly respect it.
And that is just one of the members of my family, all white, who joined the struggle to rid our country of its racism and hate and replace it with tolerance, acceptance and love. Many white families, many white Americans living today have family histories like mine.
That is why I am personally troubled by the BLM's action in silencing Bernie Sanders and other politicians who have throughout their lives stood for civil rights, stood for racial justice and stood for economic justice on top of that. These advocates for equality took chances, were criticized, in some cases ostracized and gained nothing from their efforts for themselves.
That is why I think that the BLM movement and the Black movement in general needs to understand that they have many allies in the white community and that they have not come as far as they have without the hard work, sacrifices and support of many in the white community.
None of us ever achieve our dreams all by ourselves. We need community. The BLM movement needs to stop confronting, insulting and alienating their friends and rather continue to reach out to that part of the white community that it can rely on for support. We cannot, the BLM cannot, women cannot, the LGBT community cannot, families cannot change this nation if we offend and oppose each other. We have to work together.
I assure you that is very true that I, a woman who is privileged to be white and to come from a family that has been educated for at least a couple of generations, cannot know what it is to be Black, ostracized and hated only for the color of my skin. But because I am a woman, because I have known poverty, because I have known fear, because I have known being disregarded, because I know what it is to be discriminated against in the workplace as a woman and as a worker over the age of 50, and because I have visited prisons and juvenile halls and courts and advocated for justice for all, I do feel that I am part of the solution and at least not a major part of the problem, and I deserve more respect for my contributions throughout my life to justice than the BLMers would give me.
I understand that in the movie, Selma, Lyndon B. Johnson's role in signing the Civil Rights Act was misrepresented. Excuse me. But one of the reasons he dared not run for a second full term of his own in office was the fact that he knew he could not win thanks to his signature on that Act. He knew he had lost the South for generations with that one signature. His signing that bill was an act of courage and self-sacrifice. To see black people rewrite history to omit that act of courage is very troubling.
Equal rights including ending police brutality, profiling and all discrimination is one of the top priorities for America right now.
But there are also other pressing problems. Wealth disparity and our trade policies that export jobs and with those jobs, opportunities, mean disaster for people of all races in America. That is also a top priority. Hillary Clinton talks the talk on economic justice, but she and Bill have not walked the walk on it. Homelessness is an epidemic that is hitting all races and age groups but is most troubling as it affects the very young and the very old.
We need to work together to solve not just the problem of racism but all the problems that like racism have worsened since the advent of Reaganism.
Bernie is our best bet for really getting action and not just promises to solve these problems. It is pitiful to see a group of people with no real grasp of the complex history of their own s, of their own struggle, of the history of their own movement from slavery to segregation to now the struggle for equality before the law, disowning and insulting their most reliable supporters among white people.
The BLM needs to review the history of the struggle to end slavery and segregation if it is to now end police brutality and a sick prison and judicial system. We none of us can go it alone. Women cannot achieve equal pay without the support of men. Blacks cannot achieve it or equality in the rest of their lives without the support of white people. I understand the impatience. I am impatient too.
But the suppression of voting, the police brutality, all of the racism can only be ended if we get solidarity that surpasses the limits of our own race and interests and get a LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS. It can be done, but we have to win more seats in the South. We have to win more seats in the Middle West, and we have to get our liberal voters out in the mid-term elections.
And if we are to get more voter support in elections, we have to be the party that represents the interests and speaks to the issues of more voters in those elections. The uniting issues before the American people are the economic issues, the issues of jobs, of the disparity in wealth, of a financial sector that has run amok and does not support the real economy in which we all live and strive to survive. Those are issues that unite voters. Those are the issues that can help us win support in the Midwest where we have lost it, in the South where we have lost it.
We cannot choose between advocating on economic issues or on justice issues because we cannot have justice when we have great economic hopelessness, despair and disparity in wealth. We cannot have economic justice without racial justice. We cannot have racial justice without economic justice. That is because we Democrats cannot win elections if we choose to advocate only for either racial OR economic justice. To get enough voters behind us, we have to advocate and work hard to achieve both racial and economic justice.
It's great that Black people voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. I worked hard and voted for him too. But we have to get Black voters registered and voting in the Mid-terms. And there is no excuse for any eligible Black voter to stay at home on any election day. Don't blame white people for the repression if you can't get out and vote every election. That means local elections: your school board, your city council, your state representatives. Of course, we also need to run better candidates who will support equal rights. (And here in California, racial justice and voting involve immigrants and Hispanic people who need also to get out and vote even in mid-terms.]
This is my rant. When I criticize BLM, I am speaking as a white woman who at 72 has struggled with and for Black people in the trenches for many years, at times full-time and for the poorest, lending my skills, my intelligence and my energy to their good and the good of society as I understand it. I have not exclusively advocated and worked for equality but I can say that my work especially for Black homeless men was major in my life. And I do not think it is right or honest for young Black kids to disrespect and disregard my support for their community and their future or the support that Bernie and other people have given just because their supporters are white. It is just wrong.
So that is my emotional reply to the criticism. We have to support each other. And the history of Black liberation is not one in which Black people struggled alone. A lot of white people paid the price and worked hard for equality. That should not be ignored or forgotten.
Thanks for hearing me out.
= new reply since forum marked as read
snip)To appear and be heard is the right of every American. And if politicians can't respect that right, and deal with people who have no adequate way to communicate with them other than interrupting a speech, maybe they have chosen the wrong profession."
There's nothing they have to say that I want to hear.
