An uncomfortable conversation is taking place on the Democratic presidential stage right now and Bernie Sanders seems to be at the center of it, though less so as a participant than a mediator.
The debate, in earnest, is playing out between Black Lives Matter activists and Bernie's many enthusiastic white progressive supporters—which is not to suggest that they are his only supporters, but they are certainly his core contingent. And it's personal on both sides.
The motivation for BLM activists should be obvious to anyone who has nominally followed the headlines for the past couple years. From Eric Garner to Tamir Rice to Michael Brown and god knows how many more there were and will be, unarmed black Americans are being killed in the streets for no good reason at the hands of law enforcement officials who are supposed to be protecting them. Or they're being gunned down by fellow citizens who all too often walk away free. Or they're being arrested for lane changes and jailed. Or they're being tackled outside a teenage pool party in an American suburb.
It is urgent, and we are witnessing it as a nation through the ubiquitous lens of cell phones and surveillance cameras as we never have before. For many white Americans, it is both mind-boggling and a shock to the conscience. For many black Americans, it is a modern-day reality that's finally gone public. It is like watching a horror movie on a recurring loop. But at the very least, whites can no longer say, "Oh that's a thing of the past."
The supporters of Bernie Sanders are also passionate—as are most political activists who wholeheartedly embrace a candidate they view as a critical change agent at a critical time in our country's history. It's partly his message of curing the severe economic ills that plague the nation. But it goes way beyond a series of policy pronouncements on the minimum wage and Social Security and Wall Street. Bernie connects with them—he gets them—and they are on fire for the possibility that he represents to them in a very palpable way.
For more on the intersection of Black Lives Matter and white progressives, please head below the fold.
So when he gets on stage in a progressive stronghold like Seattle in front of a crowd of several thousand people who have been waiting in the hot sun for hours to hear him speak on the issues of Medicare and Social Security, and the stage is taken away from him, it stings. It doesn't just seem insulting to Bernie, it feels like a personal jab at his supporters and their hopes and dreams for a better future.
That's where the heart of these two movements meet—at their vision for the future of the country, and those visions aren't exactly at odds with each other. They involve equality of opportunity and dignity and respect for all Americans. That's the end game, at least.
But they start at very different places and if they are to truly join forces, they must hear each other out in a dialogue that is bound to be challenging and frustrating and unnerving at times. And this is where I think the burden falls on white progressives to do more listening and less talking or shouting even when we feel insulted or disrespected or angry.
Why? Because we don't live every day with the ever-present and haunting reality that we could be playing or praying or walking down the street and suddenly have our lives or those of our loved ones stolen out from under us. And we don't live with the history that has created that reality—a history largely dictated by white people. Sure, any of us could meet our maker on any given day, but for whites, it's far less likely to be because of the color of our skin.
Yes, the Black Lives Matter movement is making people uncomfortable. I was born a middle-class white American and race isn't a particularly easy subject for me to engage. But BLM is disrupting the status quo and, in so doing, forcing difficult conversations. That's what activists do when they are in pain and desperate to convey their sense of urgency to others. It's exactly what I watched LGBT activists do in the months and years following the passage of Proposition 8. They challenged lawmakers, they challenged the president, and they forced an evolution in Washington. And while the progress on LGBT rights earns praise now, the protests of 2009 and 2010 were not particularly popular at the time.
Though the circumstances and institutional biases that LGBT activists faced and those that BLM activists are now confronting are not comparable, I have come to believe deeply in the power of protest through covering the LGBT movement over the last decade. Protests of any sort are inevitably considered rude and impolite and are often demeaned as counterproductive and not strategic. But that's because they raise an issue over and over again until people can't look away anymore.
That's exactly what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing. We are all entitled to our experience of that and our opinions about it. But I personally feel like it's not my place—as someone who had the privilege of being born white in this country—to frown upon the anguish of BLM activists and suggest that if they "just wait," for Bernie or Hillary or any other other politician or movement, it will get better. Because counseling patience to people who are watching their sisters and brothers die in the streets for no apparent reason seems unthinkable to me. And "just waiting" is never a recipe for producing change.