Rolling 2015 Thread on Race

mwah

i wasn't even agreeing with hurting you mercurial dipshit

the relationship with sanders has been a bit more directly adversarial

nah I think this can be ascribed entirely to the differing scope and powers of Sanders and Clinton's campaign. Sanders didn't have the security detail, the big team of handlers, etc. so BLM activists had an easier time gaining visibility and being genuinely disruptive

campaigns even

Honestly you guys are talking to/about me like I came in her and posted "#alllivesmatter." I agree with BLM's message and generally tactics, I just think that the disruptions of Sanders' speeches were either (A) a tactical mistake or (B) a deliberate attempt to deflate Sanders, and I sincerely hope it's just "A". I think I am capable of and entitled to think that without it meaning that I somehow have a condescending attitude toward all black activism which is what I feel like you are getting at. I know that the people who disrupted the speeches don't necessarily represent the movement as a whole, I know its national structure is on the looser side, less so than occupy but still loose. If you think these events have worked out great for everyone, fine. The fact that it at least got candidates to talk about black people is a fair point. I just think that outside the ILX bubble of people who are mostly left in pretty much the same way, there are a lot of people who are sort of borderline and could be reached but are not going to react well to their precariously leading candidate being "targeted" in a way that makes it seem as though he's seen as the problem, when he does, ultimately, have a platform that is closer to BLM's agenda than any other candidate, even if it didn't openly frame things in terms of race until very recently. Just like I think those people aren't going to react well to being labeled white supremacist, even though I know what the activists meant by that.

I just think that the disruptions of Sanders' speeches were either (A) a tactical mistake

How was that a tactical mistake? They got a candidate who's getting a lot of coverage and who was not previously all that committed to their goals to hire one of their own and start explicitly addressing the issue. This is p much the ideal outcome of such tactics.

But it angered some white people, ergo it was a mistake.

right now man alive, you might as well go ahead and post #alllivesmatter because that is the functional equivalent of the position you are arguing from

I guess I need to see a more detailed breakdown of his before/after platform, because I thought he was already committed to things like criminal justice reform that overlapped heavily with their goals.

But it angered some white people, ergo it was a mistake.

― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Friday, August 14, 2015 3:58 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The fact that a lot of effective tactics also anger people doesn't mean that everything that angers people is worth it.

If you were a research marketing group and wanted to reach the viral young demographic what candidate would you approach?

hurting are you suggesting that either Bernie or BLM lost supporters because of how this played out? cuz that's just wrong

I need to see a more detailed breakdown of his before/after platform

Before = he didn't talk about it, and if he did it was always strictly in old-school socialist "economics drives racial disparities" terms
After = he's hired a BLM activist as his press secretary and issued this: https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/

And that all happened within *less than a week*. Mission accomplished by BLM imo

If anything, Bernie made the smart move and realized there was a bloc of activists/supporters that he was alienating, and so he brought them into his tent to expand his appeal. I deeply doubt he lost any supporters because of his rapprochement with BLM, you'd have to show me some polling to reflect that.

Bernie was smart to accommodate them. His appeal is still v limited, but it shows he's not like Hillary - who appears to be taking an awful lot for granted - and that he knows he's got to broaden his base of support as much as possible. And if he gets in with BLM and that helps split the black Dem voting bloc from Hillary that is a real victory for him.

I deeply doubt he lost any supporters because of his rapprochement with BLM

No, not saying that, but I do think it hurts his momentum to have these events be the focus of his press coverage, basically being made to look foolish on national tv. Maybe the two events were minor enough that it will be behind him quickly, assuming it doesn't happen again. But I do think it hurts BLM's potential support with people who might be pretty close to supporting them. Obviously there's a line at some point of people whose support you don't really want anyway, but I think there are a lot of people who can get the message "you think you're 'progressive,' but here's where your views on race are not" if it's presented the right way.

assuming it doesn't happen again

why would it happen again

like as far as I can tell this issue got resolved p favorably for all involved, idg the handwringing unless (as DJP says) yr main concern is "some white people got angry for a few days"

IDK, I feel like I am getting invested in arguing this position beyond the degree to which the position is actually important to me, and I think I'm just going to stop posting about this for now.

the only correction I'll make to Shakey's point is that Symone Sanders was hired shortly before that protest occurred

https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/

The new platform is really awesome. It has a nice big list of real world things that could be done to address these issues. It shows both potential Bernie & BLM supports that there are concrete solutions and issues that can be pushed. This stuff rules:

ADDRESSING ECONOMIC VIOLENCE
We need to give our children, regardless of their race or their income, a fair shot at attending college. That’s why all public universities should be made tuition free.
We must invest $5.5 billion in a federally-funded youth employment program to employ young people of color who face disproportionately high unemployment rates.
Knowing that black women earn 64 cents on the dollar compared to white men, we must pass federal legislation to establish pay equity for women.
We must prevent employers from discriminating against applicants based on criminal history.
We need to ensure access to quality affordable childcare for working families.

before: sanders' campaign was a sideshow that wasn't going to accomplish anything because he'll lose anyway and it doesn't really matter what he says.
after: ... same

shakey otm

basically being made to look foolish on national TV

Howard Dean 2004 != Bernie Sanders 2016
the "people who still rely on national TV for political information" bloc is probably all Republicans anyway

This is nuts:

http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2015/investigations/pinellas-failure-factories/5-schools-segregation/

A Florida district re-segregating and neglecting schools in a majority-black neighbourhood:

Linda Lerner, who voted for the plan that resegregated the district in 2007, blamed the schools’ problems on “the cycle of poverty,” not on actions by the School Board.

“This is a nationwide thing, not just us. You hear school districts everywhere talking about this,” said Peggy O’Shea, who also voted for the plan in 2007. “It’s an issue that’s everywhere, unfortunately.”

“We only talk about it in black schools,” she added, “but we resegregated white schools as well.”

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/failure-factories-what-youre-saying-so-far-about-the-resegregation-of/2241027

link was broken

■ Teacher turnover is a chronic problem, leaving some children to cycle through a dozen instructors in a single year. In 2014, more than half of the teachers in these schools asked for a transfer out.

At least three walked off the job without notice.

Pinellas County’s black students haven’t been struggling in secret.

School Board members have heard repeatedly from parents and teachers at south St. Petersburg schools who begged for relief. State education officials have stepped in to monitor four of the five schools because of their low test scores.

Yet, when contacted by the Times, board members distorted facts, pleaded ignorance or said they needed more information before they could act.

I probably shouldn't gossip on this board, but these people piss me off so bad that I can't resist.

I think a lot of the anti-Obama stuff out there is motivated by racism, even though people who espouse it deny it. They give themselves away in their characterizations of his politics.

I live on the south side of Chicago, grew up in Obamaland, and some of the scariest anti-Obama people are from Illinois.

The Catholic parish I grew up in was and is very left-wing and activist, also welcoming to gays. Anyway I've eavesdropped on some anti-Obama conversations and they keep trying to tie him to every left-wing group and activist in Chicago, and saying he has ties to this church, who are communist sympathizers. This church has a sizable African congregation and they have mass in Igbo, and the whole bit stunk of "Obama has some exotic fruity African socialist politics." It was scary what these people believe, and they are active in their church and active in Facebook politics.

I was really shaken up by the hysteria I was hearing. I am actually scared of these people now. Obama is no more "left" than Dick Durbin, who never gets this reaction.

Does anyone else's monitor the weird, creepy anti-Obama stuff out there?

Dude was the most threatened president in U.S history in his first term alone. Not hard to imagine what flows from that kind of sentiment.

Unrelated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PU0rPx7vQ0

I'm a product of desegregated Pinellas County schools, a long time ago now. when we left for another state, I was so happy: my schools had felt like a warzone because of students fighting (the riot police were called one day), harassing the teachers, etc. recess & PE were a combination of terrifying & hilarious, the latter since I wasn't regularly a target of violence but could see it every day. the violence wasn't restricted to any particular race, as perpetrator or victim. as I got leveled higher and higher I didn't encounter as much classroom violence but my classes also got whiter and whiter.

because of all that I have very mixed and ultimately confused feelings about segregation and desegregation, stemming from worries about myself and kids like me, and the kids segregation was supposed to help.

This is crucial though:

Blacks make up only about 10 percent of the population. A majority live in a roughly 12-square-mile area south of Central Avenue in St. Petersburg.

They didn’t get there by accident.

Beginning in the 1930s, city leaders drew up plans for a “colored zone” on the city’s south side and made it impossible, through permitting and housing discrimination, for blacks to live or own businesses outside its borders. Blacks who tried to move out of the zone were met with death threats.

Clinton vs. BLM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/18/clinton-tells-black-lives-matter-activists-to-focus-on-ways-to-change-policy-not-change-hearts/

Regardless of what I think of the substance of her answers, I have to give Clinton credit for making space for the protesters when they showed up, giving them a private meeting and not asking "why are you targeting me?" when confronted with difficult questions.

I think Sanders overall would be much closer to what some BLM activists are trying to extract from the candidates if he would get his curmudgeonly "why aren't you people grateful for all I've done for you" impulses under control. Clinton OTOH seems more interested in selling how her platform can address BLM concerns as opposed to incorporating BLM concerns into her platform.

fart

sorry, but has there been a situation where BLM has approached Sanders in the way they approached Clinton, i.e. not in the midst of a public speech but where he actually was given the chance to respond in such a way?

Hillary defending the crime bill as being a response to legit community concerns is p fucking rich, esp when Bubba just apologized for signing it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/politics/bill-clinton-concedes-his-crime-law-jailed-too-many-for-too-long.html?_r=0

And when has Sanders himself (as opposed to his supporters) said anything remotely suggesting "why aren't you people grateful for all I've done for you?"

like, acting as if people weren't opposed to it back then but ARE opposed to it now (see also: p much all of Bubba's "achievements") is p lol

xp

sort of a distinction without a difference

btw if I am wrong and they had similarly requested private meetings with Sanders I take that back

also it sounds like it only happened because she successfully foiled them from disrupting her event? So I only give her "credit" as perhaps a more seasoned politician plus the candidate here lucky enough not to be caught by surprise.

O'Malley met with BLM after Netroots, Sanders declined to do so. He has def had the chance for the same kind of meeting as Clinton. And this is what he said on the Netroots stage: "Black lives of course matter. But I've spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights. If you don't want me to be here, that's okay." That sounds like 'why aren't you grateful' to me.

IDK, I took it more as "you don't need to convince me black lives matter"? Did not know about the O'Malley meeting though, so ok.

I guess on some level Bernie was out of touch and hence caught a bit off guard. Hillary gives me hives so forgive my dismissive answers.

He is from Vermont, I am sure he gets along well with the dozen black people there

rimshot!

Nobody was talking about basketball, you racist.

everything is about basketball

maybe the last 3 minutes of everything

*swish*