Source: The Stranger
Many people have been e-mailing and asking me how I am thinking about what happened yesterday at the event on social security and medicare, when some protesters identifying as Black Lives Matter got up on stage to challenge Bernie Sanders on race and racism, and ended up shutting down the event so Bernie could not speak. I’m struggling but in the spirit of community, here’s what comes to mind.
First, I want to give a huge shout out to the amazing leaders who worked for months and months to organize the event: Robby Stern and PSARA, Social Security Works Washington, Washington CAN, Burke Stansbury, and so many more. This was a huge event to put together, and their determination is what ultimately got Senator Bernie Sanders to Seattle in the first place. The rally was also packed—maybe around 5,000 people—and people stood in the hot sun for a couple of hours, engaging actively and cheering on the incredibly wide range of speakers the coalition had put together. I was proud to be the speaker just before Bernie was supposed to speak. Watching what unfolded made me heartbroken. I have so many somewhat jumbled thoughts—here are just a few.
1) This is one small result of centuries of racism. As a country, we still have not recognized or acknowledged what we have wrought and continue to inflict on black people. The bigger results are how black kids as young as two are being disciplined differently in their daycares and pre-k classes. That black people are routinely denied jobs that white people get with the same set of experiences and skills. That black people—women and men—continue to die at the hands of police, in domestic violence, on the streets. That black mothers must tell their children as young as seven or eight that they have to be careful about what pants or hoodies they wear or to not assert their rights if stopped. That this country supports an institutionalized form of racism called the criminal justice system that makes profit—hard, cold cash—on jailing black and brown people. I could go on and on. But the continued lack of calling out that indelible stain of racism everywhere we go, of refusing to see that racism exists and implicit bias exists in all of us, of refusing to give reparations for slavery, of refusing to have our version of a truth and reconciliation process—that is what pushes everything underneath and makes it seem like the fault is of black people not of the country, institutions, and people that wrought the violence. That is the anger and rage that we saw erupt yesterday on stage. But it’s not the problem, it’s a symptom of the disease of unacknowledged and un-acted upon racism.