Reniqua Allen at The Nation writes— Note to Media: Black Lives Matter Is Not a ‘Get Out the Vote’ Campaign:
Last week The Washington Post published a piece about black millennials and voting, the headline of which boldly declared: “Despite Black Lives Matter, young black Americans aren’t voting in higher numbers.” The headline and the story were both unsurprising and frustrating, a disturbing affirmation that, for all of the talk about young black America in the media, we’re still far from understood.
Unlike white millennials, we aren’t allowed to deviate from norms, to be untraditional. We have to follow strict standards and conventions. We have to be acceptable and respectable. We can’t have nuanced views and ideology, and if we have the nerve, the audacity to be angry, we better have something to show for it.
The Post’s article only affirms that sentiment, and as the primary election post-mortems begin, we can expect to hear a lot more of it. The piece claims that, despite all the work and visibility of groups like Black Lives Matter, there’s been a decrease in young black voting in 2016, implying that the movement has failed to produce electoral success. “The generation of African Americans pushing criminal-justice issues and institutional racism to the forefront of the presidential election had little effect at the ballot box during this primary season,” it notes, before pivoting to a “concerned” conversation over black youth turnout.
But there’s a problem with that frame—actually, a few of them. First, Black Lives Matter never claimed to represent all black youth or be responsible for mobilizing an entire generation at the polls. Black Lives Matter organizers have said repeatedly that voter mobilization isn’t a priority and that they were not endorsing a presidential candidate in this election.
Black Lives Matter activist and California State University professor Melina Abdullah summed up the strategy on Democracy Now! in early March: “We’re not telling people not to vote, we’re simply not endorsing any presidential candidate, recognizing that where we want to put our time and energy is in the development of people to act in their own interests and on their own behalf.” [...}
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2005—Karzai Shoots Back:
After being the subject of a critical story emanating from Washington regarding the drug trade in Afghanistan, Afghani President Hamid Karzai shot back:
President Hamid Karzai today demanded justice for Afghan prisoner abuse by American interrogators, and he blamed the United States and Britain, not his government, for the slow progress of anti-drug efforts in his country. He also said he would ask President Bush for greater control over Afghan affairs as part of a longer-term strategic partnership.
. . . Mr. Karzai underscored cooperation with the United States, but also insisted that Afghans' sense of independence and self-reliance was growing. "No Afghan is a puppet, you know," he said in a Fox News interview. "There is a stronger ownership of the Afghan government and the Afghan people now.”
It remained unclear how much his criticisms were intended for Afghan consumption, or whether his meeting with Mr. Bush might be rendered less comfortable than past such encounters, which have generally been portrayed as relaxed and amicable.
His comments, nonetheless, came at a delicate and unexpectedly contentious moment, a day after Mr. Karzai had expressed dismay over reports of abuses of Afghan prisoners - "it has shocked me thoroughly," he said Saturday in Kabul - and as Mr. Karzai's help in eradicating opium poppies in Afghanistan was being questioned by the United States.
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