Bernie Sanders bullied off stage by black lives matter protesters

[Mr. Reactionary]

The attempts to attack the phrase "all lives matter" is hilarious. If your only issue is with the racial disparity, and not the police violence in of itself, then you could easily fix the BLM's problem by having the police start killing a lot more white people.

[BM]

Welcome to the big leagues, Bernie! If you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen! Bye Felicia!

[Slander and/or Libel]

Why protest "all lives matter?" Do you disagree with that statement?

You had a good post, but I just wanted to single out this one part, as I'd been thinking specifically about it.

The problem with "All lives matter" isn't that it's not true, or that the BLM people don't believe it. It's that answering "Black lives matter" with "all lives matter" comes across like a glib attempt to co-opt the issue, and to subtly cast aspersions on the people who weren't saying it in the first place. The reason people felt the need to say "Black lives matter" in the first place is that society has seemed to have policies that indicate black lives matter less than other types of lives.

It's the same as if you say rather than feminism, we should have humanism. All well and good and kumbayah-ish, but it feels like an attempt to distract that there are very real inequities between men and women that deserve to be called out separately, and not just lumped into the human condition.

This. Saying "All lives matter!" to a BLM activist is like going up to someone trying to raise money to cure cancer and saying "all diseases are bad!"

Almost. It's like your analogy except the the people trying to cure cancer are only concerned with raising money to help cure cancer for individuals who happen to be black and completely ignoring the fact that, not only are the majority of people who die from cancer are white, but also that cancer, like police killings, is a tragedy no matter who it affects and that everyone deserves sympathy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-than-blacks-but-minority-d/?page=all


The BLM movement didn't care about Kelly Thomas or James Boyd because they were white men who were killed by police unjustly. Maybe if it had a more inclusive message, white people might start listening to their grievances.

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

[Cory]

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

Which I'm totally sure has nothing to do with the fact that black people on average commit more crimes compared to their share of the population. Nothing at all.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

[Slander and/or Libel]

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

Which I'm totally sure has nothing to do with the fact that black people on average commit more crimes compared to their share of the population. Nothing at all.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

Which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that black communities on average have much, much higher rates of police presence than white communities. Nothing at all.

And I'll spell it out a little more plainly, in case you'd be inclined to ignore it: in areas like drugs, for instance, surveys have shown over and over again that usage and sales rates are either not different between white and black people, or that white people may tend to use and sell a little more than black people. But black people get caught, arrested, convicted, and sentenced to more time on average than white people.

Black people live lives that are on average exposed to police at a MUCH higher rate than white people. If the same percentage of white people sell and use drugs as black people but black people disproportionately get caught and arrested for selling and using drugs, then it's basically a lie to say that black people commit more drug crimes.

[Bigby]

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

Which I'm totally sure has nothing to do with the fact that black people on average commit more crimes compared to their share of the population. Nothing at all.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

I think you just forfeited your D-SC avatar.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

LOL liberals on this page do not understand why the phrase Black Lives Matter is so important?

Please do not conflate a vile scumbag like Cory with liberalism or the Democratic Party.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Why protest "all lives matter?" Do you disagree with that statement?

You had a good post, but I just wanted to single out this one part, as I'd been thinking specifically about it.

The problem with "All lives matter" isn't that it's not true, or that the BLM people don't believe it. It's that answering "Black lives matter" with "all lives matter" comes across like a glib attempt to co-opt the issue, and to subtly cast aspersions on the people who weren't saying it in the first place. The reason people felt the need to say "Black lives matter" in the first place is that society has seemed to have policies that indicate black lives matter less than other types of lives.

It's the same as if you say rather than feminism, we should have humanism. All well and good and kumbayah-ish, but it feels like an attempt to distract that there are very real inequities between men and women that deserve to be called out separately, and not just lumped into the human condition.

This. Saying "All lives matter!" to a BLM activist is like going up to someone trying to raise money to cure cancer and saying "all diseases are bad!"

Almost. It's like your analogy except the the people trying to cure cancer are only concerned with raising money to help cure cancer for individuals who happen to be black and completely ignoring the fact that, not only are the majority of people who die from cancer are white, but also that cancer, like police killings, is a tragedy no matter who it affects and that everyone deserves sympathy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-than-blacks-but-minority-d/?page=all


The BLM movement didn't care about Kelly Thomas or James Boyd because they were white men who were killed by police unjustly. Maybe if it had a more inclusive message, white people might start listening to their grievances.

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

And you know full well that this movement couldn't care less about when police brutality doesn't happen to themselves and brush off police brutality against whites as just being a fluke or uncommon.

[Kingpoleon]

Where are the BLM protesters at HRC's rallies? After all her husband is the guy who gleefully executed a mentally retarded black man in 92 in order to appeal to white voters.

Moreover, he officially commemorated the Confederate flag. Obviously, he's racist.

/partisanlogic

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

Why protest "all lives matter?" Do you disagree with that statement?

You had a good post, but I just wanted to single out this one part, as I'd been thinking specifically about it.

The problem with "All lives matter" isn't that it's not true, or that the BLM people don't believe it. It's that answering "Black lives matter" with "all lives matter" comes across like a glib attempt to co-opt the issue, and to subtly cast aspersions on the people who weren't saying it in the first place. The reason people felt the need to say "Black lives matter" in the first place is that society has seemed to have policies that indicate black lives matter less than other types of lives.

It's the same as if you say rather than feminism, we should have humanism. All well and good and kumbayah-ish, but it feels like an attempt to distract that there are very real inequities between men and women that deserve to be called out separately, and not just lumped into the human condition.

This. Saying "All lives matter!" to a BLM activist is like going up to someone trying to raise money to cure cancer and saying "all diseases are bad!"

Almost. It's like your analogy except the the people trying to cure cancer are only concerned with raising money to help cure cancer for individuals who happen to be black and completely ignoring the fact that, not only are the majority of people who die from cancer are white, but also that cancer, like police killings, is a tragedy no matter who it affects and that everyone deserves sympathy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-than-blacks-but-minority-d/?page=all


The BLM movement didn't care about Kelly Thomas or James Boyd because they were white men who were killed by police unjustly. Maybe if it had a more inclusive message, white people might start listening to their grievances.

You know full well that the issue is black people being killed disproportionately more than white people, compared to their share of the population.

Clearly the solution is for the police to start killing more white people until parity has been achieved.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Clearly the solution is for the police to start killing more white people until parity has been achieved.

That's absurd. What the police obviously need to do is keep killing white people at the same rate while simultaneously reducing the number of black people they kill until parity has been achieved.

[Slander and/or Libel]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/55c0e240e4b0c9fdc75dfda3

Repeating over and over that BLM doesn't care about police killing white people doesn't make it true.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/55c0e240e4b0c9fdc75dfda3

Repeating over and over that BLM doesn't care about police killing white people doesn't make it true.

Huffington Post, always providing unbiased news coverage. I'm sure I can find some unbiased articles from the Drudge Report to respond with.

[Slander and/or Libel]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/55c0e240e4b0c9fdc75dfda3

Repeating over and over that BLM doesn't care about police killing white people doesn't make it true.

Huffington Post, always providing unbiased news coverage. I'm sure I can find some unbiased articles from the Drudge Report to respond with.

Do you actually have an argument with the content, which shows BLM affiliated people raising awareness about police killing an unarmed white teenager?

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/55c0e240e4b0c9fdc75dfda3

Repeating over and over that BLM doesn't care about police killing white people doesn't make it true.

Huffington Post, always providing unbiased news coverage. I'm sure I can find some unbiased articles from the Drudge Report to respond with.

Do you actually have an argument with the content, which shows BLM affiliated people raising awareness about police killing an unarmed white teenager?

Ok, your source is from a website that's clearly biased in favor of liberal movements and has virtually zero opposing opinions or views from it's journalists and from the people commenting on the article. The fact that you had to draw support for your argument from such a biased website immediately puts your argument and it's source under serious skepticism.

As for the article itself, what's it suppose to prove? That five twitter accounts along with a couple thousand retweets here and there is suppose to be representative of the entirety of the Black Lives Matter movement? How about the people who interrupted Bernie Sanders to speak? Do they agree as well with the article? Or how about the protesters at the netroots nation that booed Martin O'malley for stating that white lives matter? Do they also agree with this viewpoint?

Also while we're throwing out articles from biased news organizations, here's an interesting one from a conservative perspective:  http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/257808/profound-racism-black-lives-matter-john-perazzo

[Slander and/or Libel]

I ought to have known better than to engage you on this, because calling that link "interesting" kind of gives away the game.

Fact is, Black Lives Matter is focused on a very specific thing: addressing the forces which drove the disproportionate violence done to black people by police, whether fatal or physical or carceral. It's a group with a very specific mission statement. Chiding them for not focusing on white people killed by police is like chiding feminists for not focusing enough on men's issues. It's not where the inequity is, and the group is focused on the inequity. It's entirely facetious to claim that they'd be happy if more white people died to balance things out, or if fewer block people died and the same number of white people did. The issues they're concerned with touch on the broader population, but the focus is on the subset disproportionately affected.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

I ought to have known better than to engage you on this, because calling that link "interesting" kind of gives away the game.

Fact is, Black Lives Matter is focused on a very specific thing: addressing the forces which drove the disproportionate violence done to black people by police, whether fatal or physical or carceral. It's a group with a very specific mission statement. Chiding them for not focusing on white people killed by police is like chiding feminists for not focusing enough on men's issues. It's not where the inequity is, and the group is focused on the inequity. It's entirely facetious to claim that they'd be happy if more white people died to balance things out, or if fewer block people died and the same number of white people did. The issues they're concerned with touch on the broader population, but the focus is on the subset disproportionately affected.

And their strategy to get their message across is terrible. Attacking and interrupting Senator Sanders, arguably the single person running for President who'd be most willing to listen to those affected by police brutality, is no way to get your message across. This event is the second time that Sanders has been heckled on stage by BLM activists.

If this movement believes that this is the best way to get their message across and try to reform the criminal justice system in our country than they're going nowhere as a movement. Imagine if they actually organized people and voted for Congressional legislators who could actually voice their concerns to Washington. I guess they truly believe that putting out hashtags on twitter is a better use of their time and efforts.

It's sad that the argument about whether they're worried about white lives being ended by the police is reflected on Twitter instead of being reflected by a congressional legislator that they organized and voted for.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I don't disagree about the efficacy of some of the tactics, but I also think at least the most recent heckler wasn't affikiayed with or embraced by the movement at large.

Do you know that they are limiting their activity to Twitter and not advocating concrete policies? Source?

[Yelnoc]

I don't disagree about the efficacy of some of the tactics, but I also think at least the most recent heckler wasn't affikiayed with or embraced by the movement at large.

Do you know that they are limiting their activity to Twitter and not advocating concrete policies? Source?

The movement is decentralized, making it impossible to determine whether an activist is "affiliated with the movement at large." However, quiet pressure from some of the national #BlackLivesMatter organizations forced a local twitter account to recant a apology it had initially issued to Sanders, indicating that there is significant, if quiet, support for the interruption among the #BlackLivesMatter community.

[exopolitician]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/black-lives-matter-protesters-attempt-disrupt-hillary-clinton-2016-event-121269.html?cmpid=sf&utm_content=buffere05ac&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

They tried to do it again at a Clinton event, but they arrived too late apparently.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

I don't disagree about the efficacy of some of the tactics, but I also think at least the most recent heckler wasn't affikiayed with or embraced by the movement at large.

Do you know that they are limiting their activity to Twitter and not advocating concrete policies? Source?

Look at their media: http://blacklivesmatter.com/media/

It's primarily either their blog, tumblr, twitter, or photographs.

Their blog has little to no discussion about how they plan on fixing these crimes at a state and federal level through legislation except for their demands page: http://blacklivesmatter.com/demands/

They talk about federal investigation of Ferguson, that they want the militarization of the police to stop, "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" and they want law enforcement spending to be reduced at all levels of government and redirect that money to black communities to reduce poverty.
 

For starters they don't explain how they're going to accomplish this. In their most recent blog entry the spoke about how they don't endorse or belong to any political party and candidate. This makes their goals especially difficult. The Tea Party in 2009 and 2010 for example, were able to push through message through the Republican Party by organizing Republican leaning and Republican voters to the polls to elect candidates that represented the Tea Party. If the Tea Party attempted to do this without going through one of the two major political parties, they would've never gotten where they are today. This is the primary problem with the BLM movement. They don't have realistic means to enact their policy agenda proposals. Combine this with racially divisive rhetoric such as "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" makes their movement unwelcome by most Americans.

[Slander and/or Libel]

It's not the job of activist groups to have fully detailed policy proposals laid out to accomplish every one of their goals. It'd be nice if they did, but almost no groups are held to this standard, nor should they be. I agree that refraining from endorsements of candidates is probably counterproductive, but that's a tactical disagreement. Their aim is largely to maintain the spotlight on this particular disparity, and they've done that quite well. These incidents are being covered far more than was ever the case in the past.

That's not racially divisive rhetoric. Releasing the names of police officers who've killed unarmed black men can't be construed as racially divisive by any reasonable person, unless they're looking to call something racially divisive in order to dismiss it.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

It's not the job of activist groups to have fully detailed policy proposals laid out to accomplish every one of their goals. It'd be nice if they did, but almost no groups are held to this standard, nor should they be. I agree that refraining from endorsements of candidates is probably counterproductive, but that's a tactical disagreement. Their aim is largely to maintain the spotlight on this particular disparity, and they've done that quite well. These incidents are being covered far more than was ever the case in the past.

That's not racially divisive rhetoric. Releasing the names of police officers who've killed unarmed black men can't be construed as racially divisive by any reasonable person, unless they're looking to call something racially divisive in order to dismiss it.

There's plenty of talking on the media, no doubt about that, but not a whole lot of action as a result of the movement. President Obama is not currently focusing on any legislation regarding police brutality at the federal level. Few State and local governments have taken up this issue as well. BLM has made virtually no inroads with the Republican Party (except for some libertarians such as Rand Paul) and is ineffective at making inroads with the Democratic Party as well. Today Hillary Clinton held a hearing with some BLM protesters (source: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/black-lives-matter-protesters-attempt-disrupt-hillary-clinton-2016-event-121269.html) which the protesters claimed, "The activists said Clinton understood their problems, but that her answers were similar to what they’ve heard from other candidates." At this rate, the movement is unlikely to produce significant legislation for the next few years at most levels of government that effectively addresses their concerns.

Also their demand was not to release the names of unarmed killings of black people, but killings of black people in general. Killing is not murder, and to demand to bring to justice those police officers who have killed anybody irregardless if the victims of these police shootings themselves were armed and threatened the police before they were killed, is silly.

Let me also clarify the last part: releasing the names of ONLY black people killed by police in the past 5 years is also a horrible way to reach out to white families who had relatives killed, justly or unjustly, by the police. That's what I was referring to when I said they were racially divisive. The movement is not aimed at preventing police brutality as a whole, but specifically police brutality against black people. This explains in large part why their movement has failed to cross racial lines and be accepted by many Americans.

[Higgs]

It's not the job of activist groups to have fully detailed policy proposals laid out to accomplish every one of their goals. It'd be nice if they did, but almost no groups are held to this standard, nor should they be. I agree that refraining from endorsements of candidates is probably counterproductive, but that's a tactical disagreement. Their aim is largely to maintain the spotlight on this particular disparity, and they've done that quite well. These incidents are being covered far more than was ever the case in the past.

That's not racially divisive rhetoric. Releasing the names of police officers who've killed unarmed black men can't be construed as racially divisive by any reasonable person, unless they're looking to call something racially divisive in order to dismiss it.

There's plenty of talking on the media, no doubt about that, but not a whole lot of action as a result of the movement. President Obama is not currently focusing on any legislation regarding police brutality at the federal level. Few State and local governments have taken up this issue as well. BLM has made virtually no inroads with the Republican Party (except for some libertarians such as Rand Paul) and is ineffective at making inroads with the Democratic Party as well. Today Hillary Clinton held a hearing with some BLM protesters (source: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/black-lives-matter-protesters-attempt-disrupt-hillary-clinton-2016-event-121269.html) which the protesters claimed, "The activists said Clinton understood their problems, but that her answers were similar to what they’ve heard from other candidates." At this rate, the movement is unlikely to produce significant legislation for the next few years at most levels of government that effectively addresses their concerns.

Also their demand was not to release the names of unarmed killings of black people, but killings of black people in general. Killing is not murder, and to demand to bring to justice those police officers who have killed anybody irregardless if the victims of these police shootings themselves were armed and threatened the police before they were killed, is silly.

Let me also clarify the last part: releasing the names of ONLY black people killed by police in the past 5 years is also a horrible way to reach out to white families who had relatives killed, justly or unjustly, by the police. That's what I was referring to when I said they were racially divisive. The movement is not aimed at preventing police brutality as a whole, but specifically police brutality against black people. This explains in large part why their movement has failed to cross racial lines and be accepted by many Americans.

Well said.

Maybe if BLM was targeting police brutality in general they'd have more traction as a movement, but they're targeting police brutality only in cases when its supposedly a hate crime.

[publicunofficial]

This thread is hilariously atrocious.