There seems to be a bit of confusion about what it was all about. There even seems to be speculation that it was done as sabotage by Republican operatives. Pish-tosh.
This interview with Patrisse Cullors lays out the rationale. (Video is at the link; can't embed.)
This is a rough transcript of what she said:
Q: Why'd you guys do it?...
A: We just lost another one of our sisters, Sandra Bland, in police custody....
We are deeply disturbed...that law enforcement continues to brutalize and kill our communities, and get away with it.
Today's action was about calling out elected officials who may seem progressive, that you're progressive is not enough. We need more...
This is our moment...
If Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, and Martin Luther King stood silent, we would not be in this current moment today.
Q: If you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist, right?
A: Yes...
Q: Not talking about racism, not doing anything about racism - we as progressives, as Democrats, can sit around and say, "That's great." But unless you take the flag down, unless you restore the Voting Rights Act, do all these things that you're supposed to be doing, that should have been done for decades, it's not going to change...
A: When we shut an action like this down, we want you to stand in solidarity with us. For media, we want you to tell our stories the way we want them told. When law enforcement gives you police reports on our past convictions, we don't want that to be the headline, coupled with, "that's probably why we were killed." There's a way in which we need to shift narratives in this current moment. There needs to be a radical shift in the narrative of black people and our stories, and there needs to be a radical solidarity with us.
This action shouldn't be something that's annoying. People should be proud to be a part of this time in history. The Confederate flag has been taken down. When new black leaders are rising up and saying, "Stop killing us."
This is our moment to shine, and people should feel honored....
I want to make a specific ask to the presidential candidates, specifically the Democrats who are trying to reach into poor communities, people in black and latino communities. Your reform efforts have to be much more radical.
We need to hear that you are going to end detentions. We need to hear that you are going to ensure that ICE is out of jails. We need to hear that you are going to make sure that the one million black people who are currently living inside of US jails and prisons, that there are going to be real reform efforts to get them to be able to vote, that they will be able to have jobs when they come home.
We want to hear that you are going to divest from law enforcement, you're going to divest from the militarization of law enforcement, that you're going to put money into poor communities. We're not hearing that right now. We're hearing a lot of jibber-jabber.
I know that Senator Bernie Sanders left the stage. But it should not feel easy to get our vote. You need to fight for our vote. And we need the media to be pressuring these presidential candidates and fighting for the people's vote.
Q: Are you going to be going after Republicans?
A: We'll be going after Republicans, sure. But we always go after Republicans. Right now we also have to be going after Democrats.
I support Bernie Sanders, but I'm not at all upset by an action like this. Sanders himself, as an old radical, should be perfectly aware that disruptive actions like this are part of how change gets done.
They got my attention enough to go find out what it was all about. This is what it was about, and I support it.
If only all the rest of the progressive movement was willing to get in there and muck things up, be difficult, call attention to the issues that mean something, make candidates struggle to win their votes.
Hagiography of your favored candidate is silly and counter-productive.
Lay out, the way Patrisse Cullors does, what you want and what it is going to take for that candidate to get your vote.
Would that we had a million Patrisse Cullors-style progressives raising hell with the political process to get attention and then action on the issues important to them instead of being good little sheep who will just obediently go along and pledge to vote for their party's nominee, no matter what.
