Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, slain by the NY Police in 2014 in what was called a homicide, writes in the Washington Post:
Black lives like my father’s should matter. That’s why I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders.
If our lives really mattered, we’d have equal access to decent jobs, good schools and affordable housing. If our lives mattered in this country, we’d have equal access to clean air, clean water and real investment in black neighborhoods. If black lives mattered in America, those who routinely brutalize us wouldn’t be the ones paid, with our tax dollars, to keep us safe.
I trusted establishment Democrats who claimed to represent me, only to later watch them ignore and explain away the injustice of my father’s death. I trusted the system; then I watched as politicians on both sides of the aisle — from Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel to Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder — disregard the will of the people they were elected to represent and abdicate their responsibility to protect them. I’ve watched as our system criminalizes blackness while allowing Wall Street to bilk the American people with impunity.
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We aren’t the first generation of black Americans to rise up and demand our human right to life, and we won’t be the last. But I know a better world is possible. I know that once we come together, we are powerful beyond imagination. Sen. Sanders knows this too. He’s learning from us, working with us and respecting the power of we, the people, over the established political machine.
I remember another candidate who dared me to believe in hope and change. His opponents said he wasn’t ready for leadership. They said he couldn’t win. He said, “Yes, we can.” And we did.
It’s a powerful piece — go read the whole thing.