I have been thinking a lot about the Black Lives Matter tactics and reading the response to their shutting down of Bernie Sanders in Seattle (after the Netroots protest). I believe much of the response more or less is both proving BLM’s point and furthering their agenda. I like Bernie Sanders quite a bit although I believe the media will rip him to shreds if he gets anywhere near the nomination. But I also am very much in support of BLM. But I believe the discussion we should be having is not why is BLM doing this to Bernie, but why is BLM doing this? And I wonder why we are not having this type of serious discussion rather than basically shouting their tactics down (how different is this from what BLM is doing to Bernie) and assuming that these people don’t know what they are doing because you don’t like what they are doing. Here is my take, for what it’s worth (understanding that many people are deeply invested in Bernie Sanders)/
The November after next no matter who the democratic nominee is the party is going to go to the Black (and to a lesser extent the Latino/a) community and say “you must vote for us. You have no choice. We will take care of your issues in the long run, but you have no choice.” And the Black community at that point will know the party and its apparatus, including the progressive wing, is right. And they will vote reliably for the Democratic candidate. And the issues of their children dyinging will get little attention over the next four years. Wash, rinse, repeat. The Black community gets lip service in the primaries and demands in the general election. And then things get worse. There is only one chance to really shape the debate and that is during the primary. But how do you do that?
There is a school of thought that the only way to really get change is to critique the dominant narrative, to show individuals that what they think is the way things must be is not the way it must be. To force us to reconsider our own thinking on subjects where we are sure we are in the right. So the Democratic party, including progressives, says “we are your friends, go critique the narrative of the Republicans.” But then the party comes back in the fall and says, “well our narrative is really the only one that is meaningful to you, the only one that will do you any good.” Perhaps BLM has come to understand that that the Black community has been critiquing the wrong narrative. They need to critique the Democratic party narratives, the progressive narratives, so we are forced to ask ourselves, “What are we as progressives doing wrong? What is it about what we are doing that is leading Black men and women to be killed? “ These are really hard questions to ask because we really, really believe that we are doing everything we possibly can to prevent this. The progressive narrative can’t see itself as being part of the problem in any way. BLM I think isn’t looking for answers right now, they are looking for progressives to acknowledge the problems so they can start to build solutions with them.
The only time BLM can do this is during the primary season. They have no options during the general election. The only way they can do this is through open and vociferous critique of the narratives that they think have at least some chance of leading to solutions. Doing anything else will simply leads to “I stand with you” homilies and repetition of the same narratives because we are “allies.” To truly critique you must make people feel uncomfortable, to look in an honest mirror. I don’t think BLM has anything against Bernie Sanders as an individual. His events are just an opportunity for critique. They would do the same thing to O’Malley, but nobody would care. I believe they will do Hillary Clinton when they get the chance (she is not doing the same type of large events that tap so deeply into progressive narratives right now).