Black Lives Matter demands from their website. MAKE YOUR CANDIDATE RESPOND TO THESE DEMANDS.

[Luminous Animal]

Last edited Tue Jul 21, 2015, 12:41 AM - Edit history (1)

IF YOU CLAIM TO SUPPORT BLACK LIVE MATTER, SEND THESE DEMANDS TO YOUR CANDIDATE.

I just sent them to all the candidates.

I am posting this here but it could just have been posted in GD but given the recent controversy…

1. We will seek justice for Brown’s family by petitioning for the immediate arrest of officer Darren Wilson and the dismissal of county prosecutor Robert McCullough. Groups that are part of the local Hands Up Don’t Shoot Coalition have already called for Wilson’s swift arrest, and some BLM riders also canvassed McCullough’s neighborhood as a way of raising the public’s awareness of the case. (Have they asked any of the candidates position re this demand?)

2. We will help develop a network of organizations and advocates to form a national policy specifically aimed at redressing the systemic pattern of anti-black law enforcement violence in the US. The Justice Department’s new investigation into St Louis-area police departments is a good start, but it’s not enough. Our ride was endorsed by a few dozen local, regional and national organizations across the country – like the National Organization for Women (Now) and Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation – who, while maintaining different missions, have demonstrated unprecedented solidarity in response to anti-black police violence. We hope to encourage more organizations to endorse and participate in a network with a renewed purpose of conceptualizing policy recommendations. (Have they asked any of the candidates position re this demand?)

3. We will also demand, through the network, that the federal government discontinue its supply of military weaponry and equipment to local law enforcement. And though Congress seems to finally be considering measures in this regard, it remains essential to monitor the demilitarization processes and the corporate sectors that financially benefit from the sale of military tools to police. (This is precisely Bernie's position for quite a while but have they asked any of the candidates re: this demand?)

4. We will call on the office of US attorney general Eric Holder to release the names of all officers involved in killing black people within the last five years, both while on patrol and in custody, so they can be brought to justice – if they haven’t already. (What was Holder's response? Have they called Lynch?)

5.And we will advocate for a decrease in law-enforcement spending at the local, state and federal levels and a reinvestment of that budgeted money into the black communities most devastated by poverty in order to create jobs, housing and schools. This money should be redirected to those federal departments charged with providing employment, housing and educational services. (Another demand that echoes Bernie's position but have they asked the candidates re their position?)

And that is it. No updates to recent killings. Nothing about community policing. Nothing about police training and oversight. See the amazing example of Richmond, CA - http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_26482775/use-deadly-force-by-police-disappears-richmond-streets

I've long been an activist for social and economic justice. And here is how you target a human being or an organization.

1. You post/send your list of demands to ALL of your targets. You have ALL of your membership send your list of demands to the media and your target.
2. You allow the targets to respond to those demands.

a. If the targets do not respond and depending how media profile that target gets (really - why waste time on Chafee), you blast the shit out of them in every public venue you can reach.

b. If the target does respond, you ask for a meeting and open up a dialog before taking any action.
3. If the result to that meeting was mostly satisfactory (No meeting is 100% satisfactory). All parties agree to a community liaison…
4. If communication breaks down between the liaison to the detriment of organizations goals… ACTION!

I truly feel that Black Lives Matter put the cart before the horse. Activism is a long game and has many failures before success. But we can only reach the long game if we put some things aside.

I worked hand in hand with Sister Bernice Galvin for housing justice in San Francisco. She was anti-abortion, I was for it. We did not talk about while we were scaling buildings in the Presidio to secure housing for homeless people.

I worked hand in hand with members of the Women's Economic Agenda Project. And many of those members were congregants of a church who preached gay hate. While we strategized to defend women on welfare who were being prosecuted… we did not talk about it.

My point here is that no alliance is perfect but first you must SEEK OUT that alliance. It is foolish to assume that one does not exist BEFORE a dialogue.

[Cheese Sandwich]

1. The protest group from netroots, is that like an actual group with a website?

Is this the website?

http://blacklivesmatter.com/blog/

I don't see much recent activity there

Edit: No I'm sorry I think this is the website: http://www.blackalliance.org/

Tia Oso of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, who represented the demonstrators, climbed onto the stage, secured a microphone, and delivered a speech while O'Malley looked on.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/bernie-sanders-netroots-nation-black-lives-matter/

[Luminous Animal]

2. Nope Here is the site

http://blacklivesmatter.com

Which brings up another matter that bothers me. Why did the only register as a commerce site because blacklivesmatter.org brings up a site that is for sale.

Not one social/criminal/economic justice organization that I have been involved with uses .com as their go to URL. Most will secure .com and .net. in order to re-route to .org. Not one uses .com as their primary go to address.

.com means your are involved with commerce. .com means you intend to make make a profit.

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. Wasn't it these guys "Black Alliance for Just Immigration"

http://www.blackalliance.org/who-we-are/

Tia Oso of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, who represented the demonstrators, climbed onto the stage, secured a microphone, and delivered a speech while O'Malley looked on.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/bernie-sanders-netroots-nation-black-lives-matter/

They seem pretty cool to me

[Luminous Animal]

4. You addressed your post to the wrong person.

[Cheese Sandwich]

5. I think there are a bunch of groups

It's very decentralized. Kind of like #occupy or something like that.

Sure there are some people acting like leaders but I'm not sure they speak on behalf of anybody.

The points you made in the OP are great though.

[Luminous Animal]

8. The one group that I linked to is the group that challenged O'Malley and Sanders. And thanks!

[delrem]

10. I like that #occupy had no leader,

no slick organization with powerpoint agenda. That it was "just people" demonstrating for change, pointing out exactly what needs the change.

So #occupy wasn't trying to supply some fixed in advance answer, it was giving people a voice and those with courage and whose voices resonated became prominent.

But I do think movements like #occupy require the existence of several more structured organizations of people to work out how to implement that change - so there can be debate amongst adherents of different plans so a common direction forward can be winnowed out. Too bad that doesn't seem to exist.

Maybe I'm just more traditionalist? Or maybe it's just that in a democracy a structured organization with a set agenda for change, with honest and well-spoken leaders with reliable staffs, etc. is necessary - else there's nobody for a relatively unstructured voice like someone who supports the idea of #occupy to actually vote for? Or just work with in their community.

So I have no criticism of #blm if it's similar to #occupy. Or for the #blm speakers. I *do* have criticism of NN and the moderator. IMO NN blew it by not providing the well-organized and moderated venue required to get such voices out there clearly (in fact the moderator was so odd that his antics became a horrendous side-show). The result is that political apparatchiks with payloads of cash, in this primary season, are using the #blm demo to attack Democratic politicians and to drown the actual issue in professionally orchestrated name-calling and innuendo. It is being used to bring Democratic candidates down - to discard them, to discard their history, to discard their supporters. To shut down their message. It's being used to divide and conquer. At least it's being used that way on DU - and with a professionally orchestrated vengeance.

But that's not #blm's fault.

[Cheese Sandwich]

15. Yes like any hashtag-based movement there are a lot of people using it for so many agendas

Most are sincere, but like #occupy there must be politicians who want to use it cynically, other people who will try to profit off it, and many using it to advance their careers, which isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes can be.

[delrem]

18. I don't like the contradiction of the co-opters,

who from one side of their mouth say it's all about race, and from the other side say that Bernie has to shut up about economic justice and socialist programs like universal health care etc., and about how socialist programs like universal right to education etc. benefit all people of all races and religions and benefit the community and country as a whole, and who've even come right out and said that Blacks are mostly "capitalist" or "not poor" and/or just don't give a shit about economic issues, where those "economic issues" include basic rights that're recognized over most of the civilized world (except the USA).

Then they've hit me for being "paternalistic" and "condescending" and put words in my mouth/mind like I'm dissing "uppity negroes" and so on, just for trying to explain my view -- and there's just no way to defend myself from the lies.

(sorry for the rant - maybe I should take a break from DU...)

[Cheese Sandwich]

21. This is the internet so expect all manner of bizarre things

But I don't think too many people want Bernie to shut up about economic issues. Sure some people do.

Most people who are sincere just want him to come up with some better answers on this issue. I'll call it police and criminal justice reform.

If somebody asks what's your plan to fix how police murder black people and get away with it, Bernie can't answer with unemployment and Obamacare and too many black kids are hangin out on street corners. It sounds like a wrong answer and actually can be taken as offensive victim blaming.

It's really not that hard to just answer the question in a direct way stating what a president can do to protect black Americans and others who suffer at the hands of an extremely corrupt and unjust "criminal justice" system.

Personally I am a socialist. I do think capitalism is the root cause of slavery and all the racial problems that came from slavery. Bernie might think so too, but that is way too heavy a topic for the campaign trail and activists are demanding major reforms of the criminal justice system. What's more, those reforms can actually have broad appeal across the political spectrum to some independents, libertarians and conservatives. Everybody knows the police and prison system is way out of control.

I am a Bernie voter all the way, and I sincerely hope he makes these minor adjustments.

[JDPriestly]

24. Good post.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

33. A lot of folks don't think of it that way.

They simply see that most websites are .com, so they buy a .com website when they get one. Groups started by regular people, not people who are already trained organizers don't worry about things that trivial.

[John Poet]

34. That's no longer strictly true...

".com means your are involved with commerce. .com means you intend to make make a profit."

That's how things used to be-- but not really anymore-- especially if one is not going to incur the expense of maintaining multiple domain extensions pointing to the same site (but using the top three major extensions with redirects as you describe would be ideal). Probably the other domain is owned by someone else involved in the BLM movement.

The .com extension is generally preferred for a number of reasons-- chief being that's it's the most common, and therefore easiest for visitors to remember and get right when typing an address from memory. There may also be some search listing advantage to being a .com over any of the others, and the resale value will be somewhat higher over any other extension.

Because of the huge number of existing .com registrations, it can now be very difficult for commercial entities to get the names they want under that extension, so they have to go with something else.

While the .org extension might seem more appropriate for the group, it would likely result in fewer visitors and return visitors if used as a stand-alone.

I always go for the ".com" address first for any of my sites, whether there's any planned commercial tie-in or not, and most of my sites are non-commercial.

[Luminous Animal]

6. Kick.

[Triana]

7. "I truly feel that Black Lives Matter put the cart before the horse."

BINGO! Exactly.

[KeepItReal]

9. Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. US Attorney Generals who are getting a total pass.

Black Lives Matter.com (not the hashtag used by Black Twitter and friends of the movement) is not convincing me that they are serious, non-partisan actors in these challenges of candidates who won't take office until 2017.

You have a sitting African American President AND US Attorney General (and have for several years). The full weight of the US Department of Justice could be focused on local Police and Sheriff's departments coast to coast without so much as a single vote in Congress. Instead, Justice and FBI only interject themselves once an event reaches a certain level of media coverage.

When does Black Lives Matter confront the people in power TODAY?

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton can't stop a single cop today from from violating my civil rights (or worse) and getting away with it. Attorney General Loretta Lynch can.

When I bring this up on DU, all I get are crickets.

[Luminous Animal]

11. Exactly. We've got a year plus from an Attorney General that we have to take action. Why no in your face

pressure directed to the current admin. TODAY!?

[KeepItReal]

12. If Attorney General Lynch started a proactive policy of monitoring police depts

for Civil Rights and other violations right now, we could hold candidates and future administrations accountable for upholding the policy.

That's a win we could have TODAY.

[Luminous Animal]

13. Exactly. Why put the pressure on something that may happen in 2017 when you can set a

framework to make it happen now.

[Maedhros]

19. It would seem prudent to put pressure on the White House

at the same time as pressure is brought to bear on primary candidates.

[frylock]

14. I have not seen nor heard anything that would indicate that they have pressured Obama..

or either one of his AGs.

[Autumn]

16. I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who becomes invisable

when I ask why the ones in power NOW at this time not being confronted. Crickets indeed.

[SoapBox]

20. +1000

Exactly.

[Luminous Animal]

22. Indeed. Why is not Obama being challenged. Why is he not being threatened to close down

every event that he participates in.

I've asked and you can too.

http://blacklivesmatter.com/contact/

[Cheese Sandwich]

25. It doesn't matter

The point is they are challenging the presidential candidate right now.

Maybe they are not challenging Obama because they just like his haircut. Or because he is the first black president so they don't want to make him look bad. Maybe the protesters from Netroots are all undercover paid Hillary agents

Maybe it's not fair they are giving extra scrutiny to Bernie for no reason. Maybe it's a swiftboating.

None of that matters. What matters is how Bernie responds, and how his supporters respond. The right way to respond is apparently they just want to you say you're listening, and then come up with a answer that makes sense on police accountability and criminal justice reform, and related issues. It's really not that hard. just listen to people and tell them true answers that they like. Very easy.


EDIT: I changed my my mind. It does matter if you want to raise the question. It's part of of your response to the issue. My bad.

[Skittles]

27. say what?

NONE OF THAT MATTERS? WTF.

read your edit - well thank you for not trying to shut down the debate, which is going on her quite a lot lately

[Cheese Sandwich]

28. I guess it matters ...

Somebody is interested so I guess it matters. I meant really that this question is coming at us and what matters most is how we respond and good answers are actually pretty easy to come up with. Instead of spending energy and losing friends inspecting the motives of the protest too much, in my opinion it would be better to focus on addressing the substance of the issue in a straightforward way. Getting into an internet feud with black people twitter is literally the worst possible political strategy I can imagine.

[Skittles]

30. alienating supporters is never a winning strategy

[JDPriestly]

26. Precisely. BLM needs to seek a meeting with Obama right now.

The Justice Department and the FBI should be working much harder on investigating and requiring answers from local police departments.

[beam me up scottie]

17. Good op, LA.

And thank you for all of your advocacy work.

[JDPriestly]

23. I like your plan of action.

It is not enough to complain about a problem even the most serious of problems. You have to plan and then carry out your plan of action and do something to improve the situation.

Thanks for your input. You have the experience in this.

I know Obama has done somethings to tackle these problems, but not nearly enough. Seems to me that the BLM movement should first seek a meeting with him personally and then with each of the candidates.

I am sure that Bernie will be interested in hearing their proposals and acting on those that in his experience will succeed.

At least Obama visited a prison. That is a start. He should meet with the BLM people.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. The way things work in DC lately is either they take your money...

Or it goes to your opponent.

No money?

Forget it.

[Cheese Sandwich]

31. Scaling buildings with radical nuns to help homeless people get housing?

I like how you just casually threw that in there. Seriously that's awesome though. I meant to say that in the first place.

[HooptieWagon]

32. Demands?

One of the panelists in the morning BLM panel discussion was Rep Hank Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee and CBC. Did they present their demands to him? Or did they say would you work on this with us?