Bernie Sanders bullied off stage by black lives matter protesters

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Black lives matter movement is such a joke.

Are they gonna make Sanders apologize next for being white and being a jew who supports Israel?

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Ok I saw this at netroots and now I'm seeing it in the comment section of that article as well.

Why do so many Sanders supporters accuse these BLM protesters of being paid off by the Hillary camp to discredit Sanders?

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Text from article for lazy people :

"Protesters who claimed affiliation with the Black Lives Matter movement stormed the stage during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Seattle on Saturday, taking over the microphone and forcing Sanders to leave without ever speaking.
 
Moments after Sanders took the stage at Westlake Park, two women and one man climbed the stage and confronted the Democratic presidential candidate, demanding a chance to speak.

After several moments of confusion and confrontation, an event organizer took the microphone and said the protesters would be allowed to speak before Sanders. Some in the crowd booed.
 
One protester, who identified herself as Marissa Johnson, began by saying, “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is — with all of its progressives — but you’ve already done that for me. Thank you.”

Hahahahaha.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

I can't even........I can't even begin to think of a response for that LOL

This is what happens when Tumblr gets involved with Politics.

.... At least the Tea Party doesn't basically grab Cruz and push him off the stage.

Agreed.

This may be the first time I actually side with Sanders supporters, but these protesters really show their own ignorance and racism by doing this. I guess because Sanders is white and doesn't bow down to their movement, he's considered a racist. Isn't BLM just wonderful?

I feel bad for Sanders. I disagree with him on quite a few issues, but I don't think he's racist by any means. This segment of the BLM movement is embarrassing. They're either ignorant or racist.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

The BLM has been taken over my extremists who seem to think that ONLY black lives matter and that if anyone else is impacted it doesn't matter UNLESS they're black. Look how they're treating all the candidates because they want unity when they say ALL LIVES MATTER.

The problem with "all lives matter" is that it is dishonest, since we are not "all in this together."  As a group, blacks truly do have legitimate grievances, such as suffering at the hands of law enforcement, that do not apply to whites.

Also, unless you have evidence to support your claim, I'm not sure it's fair to say that these extremists have "taken over" the movement.  As far as I can tell, they are just a vocal minority.

While it's true that black people are three times more likely to get shot by the police, the majority of people killed by police are still white. So yes, technically we'd all be in this together.

I don't recall BLM drawing attention to the deaths of white men such as James Boyd or Kelly Thomas.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

You don't seem to understand the ethos of this movement. These people don't care about Bernie Sanders' participation in the civil rights movement because Bernie Sanders is inherently an oppressor. He was an oppressor in the womb and nothing that he can do, including standing in the corner staring at his shoes while his own rally is coopted, can change that.  

This times 1000.

This mentality of the BLM movement is the same as the Tumblr mentality of being inherently suspicious of anyone who happens to be a heterosexual white cisgender male even if they happen to agree with you 95% politically.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

It may happen to whites as well, but the problem that BLM is trying to address is the unconscious racism that results in the discrepancy in treatment by law enforcement between whites and blacks.  "All lives matter" only addresses the broad problem of unwarranted police violence, and ignores how blacks have been systemically treated differently than whites.

Racism is certainty prevalent in the criminal justice system when it comes drug laws and perhaps other areas as well.

But BLM is specifically concerned with police killings, as their name suggests. They should not be upset or angered whenever somebody brings up the fact that whites are killed by the police and the statement "all lives matter" should not warrant boos and an apology from a public official.

This behavior of storming Sanders' rally and refusing to allow him to speak is not an uncommon occurrence among the BLM movement. Just look at the netroots nation fiasco.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Dear God, some of the defenses of Sanders here are mind-bogglingly condescending and ignorant. Are Black people somehow obligated to vote for Sanders because he supported Jesse Jackson 37 years ago, or that he supported civil rights 50 years ago? This argument is nearly tantamount to accusing Democrats of being racist because of Dixiecrats or claiming that Blacks are obligated to vote Republican because of slavery. No, those concerned with police brutality and racial profiling should support the candidate willing to make meaningful changes toward preventing institutional racism, which is clearly one of Sanders' weaker areas. Condemning incidences of police brutality (which Sanders has done, and has a better record than most candidates on) does not make a concrete policy proposal to solve the issue, nor does talking about past support for civil rights.  

We aren't talking about black people as a whole. Not all black people are obliged to be Democrats, or vote for Democrats, or support the BLM movement, or support Bernie Sanders. The point was that these "tactics" and I use that term very loosely, of raiding the stage of a Presidential candidate and refusing to allow them to speak so that you can push your agenda, is sickening.

These BLM protesters have every right to protest. But after the netroots nation fiasco where they raided the stage to speak while the host, Jose Vargas, did absolutely nothing combined with the the event that the article is referring to, is pathetic to say the least. These people are making a movement look like a total joke with these antics. Demanding that Martin O'Malley apologize for saying "all lives matter"?? Using Sander's stage as an opportunity to shove their agenda down people's throats?

This is not how progress works.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

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Because this movement doesn't address the fact that most people killed by the police happen to be white. This movement didn't bat an eye when Kelly Thomas was brutally killed (in my opinion murdered) in 2011 by the police. This movement didn't bother to respond to the death of James Boyd either. They focus primarily on black victims of police brutality, instead of focusing on an inclusive tone and message.

The term "all lives matter" isn't a bad phrase given that most people who die because of police shooting are white. Yes black people are three times more likely to die because of police brutality and this is an issue we must address. However it must be addressed along with police brutality towards everyone, regardless of the victim's skin color.

If you support these types of tactics of rushing Presidential candidates and silencing/shouting at them until they comply, then go right ahead and keep supporting this movement. I don't believe that these types of acts are conductive towards progress regarding race relations and fixing police brutality.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

Bernie shouldn't be giving up the podium so quickly!  If this happens again, he should try to stand his ground as long as possible while acknowledging their concerns.  As long as he doesn't say "white lives matter" he'll probably do better than O'Malley, and it would be fun to watch.

If only there was a stand your ground law in Seattle and George Zimmerman was Sanders' security guard.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.