An Open Letter To Bernie Sanders Supporters | PopularResistance.Org
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An Open Letter To Bernie Sanders Supporters
Screen Shot 2015-08-14 at 9.36.39 AM
Dear Bernie Sanders supporters,
Shut up and listen for once. When black women interrupt your candidate,
don't call them "thugs." And when protesters hijack your hero's microphone
to have their story heard, it doesn't mean they're paid provocateurs in some
elaborate plot involving George Soros and Hillary Clinton. You know who else
propagates wild conspiracy theories about George Soros funding left-wing
protesters? Glenn Beck and Allen West. So congratulations, white
progressives - your fanaticism for Bernie has turned you into the thing you
hate.
Bernie Sanders says the only thing that will guarantee his election is a
"political revolution." But when that revolution tried to speak, you
suppressed it.
Unlike Occupy Wall Street, this movement wasn't started by or largely made
up of white progressives. And unlike Occupy, this movement isn't just about
a higher minimum wage or free college education or single-payer healthcare.
This movement was started by people who are fed up with watching their
friends and family die in their streets, their homes, and their churches, at
the hands of the very people charged with protecting them, and having to
watch those people walk away from countless dead bodies without facing any
consequences. Black people are statistically four times more likely to die
in police custody than whites. And that's something white progressives like
you and me never have to worry about. We have the privilege of being able to
talk about lofty policy goals that may be achieved at some point in our
lifetime, and putting "all that racial stuff" on the back burner. Everyone
who isn't white doesn't have that privilege.
Madison, Wisconsin, one of the most liberal cities in the nation, epitomizes
white progressive America. The Wisconsin Uprising brought out almost 200,000
people in early 2011 to support worker's rights even in the middle of a
Midwestern winter. They also mobilized to elect Tammy Baldwin, the first
openly gay U.S. Senator. Madison's mayor, Paul Soglin, used to be an ardent
antiwar activist in the 1960s.
But Madison, just like America's white progressive movement, is just as
racist as it is liberal. Madison is the same place where unarmed 19-year-old
Tony Robinson, who was black, was killed by white Madison police officer
Matt Kenny, who didn't face charges. African-Americans are incarcerated at
higher rates in Wisconsin (12.8 percent in 2013, second-place Oklahoma's
rate was 10 percent) than anywhere else in the country. Mayor Soglin has
become a crusader for gentrifiers, proposing to buy $25,000 in bus tickets
to push out the homeless population, and recently vetoing a proposal to make
the homeless a protected class. Just as Seattle's mostly-white crowd of
Bernie Sanders supporters was offended at being called white supremacists,
anyone protesting Scott Walker at the Wisconsin state capitol or waving a
rainbow flag on State Street would be deeply offended if they were told they
were complicit supporters of institutional white supremacy.
And that's precisely the problem with white progressives.
Do you wish the protesters would've stayed quiet? The Seattle Police
Department has been under federal consent decree for the last three years
after the U.S. Department of Justice found evidence of excessive use of
force and discriminatory policing. The people subjected to that excessive
force don't have any interest in staying quiet.
Are you angry that you never got to hear Bernie's speech on Medicare and
Social Security? Someone who lost their college classmate to police gunfire
is even angrier, because they don't even know if they'll be alive by the
time they're eligible for those programs.
Are you upset that you didn't get to hear Bernie talk about a $15 an hour
minimum wage? Someone who has been economically destitute for so long
because no employers will call them back for an interview due to the
blackness name listed on the resume won't get a fair chance to earn that
wage.
Are you pissed off that you didn't get to hear Bernie Sanders talk about
free college education? Seattle just spent $210 million on a new juvenile
prison, where 42 percent of the juvenile inmate population is black even
though they only make up 8 percent of Seattle's juvenile population. How can
someone think about free college when they're being forced through the
school-to-prison pipeline?
The primary process of a presidential election is a time where acts of
disruption should be encouraged, no matter the target. In a healthy
democracy, protesters' disruptions of candidates' stump speeches would be
celebrated. Almost all of this year's presidential candidates are current or
former governors, U.S. senators, or wealthy captains of industry and have
the means to be able to have their voices heard at any time they like. But
the people dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional
racism don't have that privilege. And if they have to shut down a campaign
event to force candidates and the media to acknowledge their epidemic and
propose solutions, they'll do it.
As someone who has said they are the only candidate who can represent the
oppressed underclass, and who has run on his record of sitting in to protest
Jim Crow laws in the 1960s, Bernie Sanders deserves to be disrupted
precisely for this reason. As unfair as it may seem to his supporters, it
doesn't matter to young black people losing their friends and family today
that a white liberal in the 1960s did what he was expected to do - the only
thing that matters is what he's doing right now.
After getting interrupted at Netroots Nation, storming off the stage, and
refusing to meet with Black Lives Matter protesters, Bernie Sanders wised up
and hired Symone Sanders - a powerful, outspoken, young black woman who
volunteers at the Coalition for Juvenile Justice - to be his national press
secretary after she convinced him that economic inequality and racial
inequality are interconnected. Bernie Sanders used to get called out by
conservatives for omitting racial justice from his stump speech. But on
Sunday he's since revised his website and stump speech to address about
racial injustice issues of mass incarceration, voting rights, police
militarization, and how black people are disproportionately targeted. This
is proof that disruption works. And we need more of it, not less.
If your issue isn't getting talked about, and if a candidate is coming to
your town for a public event, you should absolutely do everything you can to
be heard. Last month, Hillary Clinton got heckled for her horrendous record
on climate change. Protesters greeted Martin O'Malley at his campaign
announcement in Baltimore, saying he "must atone" for propagating
racially-biased policing as Baltimore's mayor. In New Hampshire, Scott
Walker was the subject of a clever photo-op protest, regarding his campaign
donations from the Koch Brothers. Protest is essential to political
discourse, and protest only works if you succeed in changing the
conversation. Was it rude for OutsideAgitators206 to interrupt Bernie
Sanders? Yes. But did they succeed in pushing Black Lives Matter to the
front of the conversation? Absolutely.
Bernie's supporters need to realize that Bernie Sanders is not the leader of
this political revolution. We all are. Let the revolution unfold - Bernie is
welcome to join if he's ready.
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popularresistance.org
https://www.popularresistance.org/an-open-letter-to-bernie-sanders-supporter
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An Open Letter To Bernie Sanders Supporters
Screen Shot 2015-08-14 at 9.36.39 AM
Dear Bernie Sanders supporters,
Shut up and listen for once. When black women interrupt your candidate,
don't call them "thugs." And when protesters hijack your hero's microphone
to have their story heard, it doesn't mean they're paid provocateurs in some
elaborate plot involving George Soros and Hillary Clinton. You know who else
propagates wild conspiracy theories about George Soros funding left-wing
protesters? Glenn Beck and Allen West. So congratulations, white
progressives - your fanaticism for Bernie has turned you into the thing you
hate.
Bernie Sanders says the only thing that will guarantee his election is a
"political revolution." But when that revolution tried to speak, you
suppressed it.
Unlike Occupy Wall Street, this movement wasn't started by or largely made
up of white progressives. And unlike Occupy, this movement isn't just about
a higher minimum wage or free college education or single-payer healthcare.
This movement was started by people who are fed up with watching their
friends and family die in their streets, their homes, and their churches, at
the hands of the very people charged with protecting them, and having to
watch those people walk away from countless dead bodies without facing any
consequences. Black people are statistically four times more likely to die
in police custody than whites. And that's something white progressives like
you and me never have to worry about. We have the privilege of being able to
talk about lofty policy goals that may be achieved at some point in our
lifetime, and putting "all that racial stuff" on the back burner. Everyone
who isn't white doesn't have that privilege.
Madison, Wisconsin, one of the most liberal cities in the nation, epitomizes
white progressive America. The Wisconsin Uprising brought out almost 200,000
people in early 2011 to support worker's rights even in the middle of a
Midwestern winter. They also mobilized to elect Tammy Baldwin, the first
openly gay U.S. Senator. Madison's mayor, Paul Soglin, used to be an ardent
antiwar activist in the 1960s.
But Madison, just like America's white progressive movement, is just as
racist as it is liberal. Madison is the same place where unarmed 19-year-old
Tony Robinson, who was black, was killed by white Madison police officer
Matt Kenny, who didn't face charges. African-Americans are incarcerated at
higher rates in Wisconsin (12.8 percent in 2013, second-place Oklahoma's
rate was 10 percent) than anywhere else in the country. Mayor Soglin has
become a crusader for gentrifiers, proposing to buy $25,000 in bus tickets
to push out the homeless population, and recently vetoing a proposal to make
the homeless a protected class. Just as Seattle's mostly-white crowd of
Bernie Sanders supporters was offended at being called white supremacists,
anyone protesting Scott Walker at the Wisconsin state capitol or waving a
rainbow flag on State Street would be deeply offended if they were told they
were complicit supporters of institutional white supremacy.
And that's precisely the problem with white progressives.
Do you wish the protesters would've stayed quiet? The Seattle Police
Department has been under federal consent decree for the last three years
after the U.S. Department of Justice found evidence of excessive use of
force and discriminatory policing. The people subjected to that excessive
force don't have any interest in staying quiet.
Are you angry that you never got to hear Bernie's speech on Medicare and
Social Security? Someone who lost their college classmate to police gunfire
is even angrier, because they don't even know if they'll be alive by the
time they're eligible for those programs.
Are you upset that you didn't get to hear Bernie talk about a $15 an hour
minimum wage? Someone who has been economically destitute for so long
because no employers will call them back for an interview due to the
blackness name listed on the resume won't get a fair chance to earn that
wage.
Are you pissed off that you didn't get to hear Bernie Sanders talk about
free college education? Seattle just spent $210 million on a new juvenile
prison, where 42 percent of the juvenile inmate population is black even
though they only make up 8 percent of Seattle's juvenile population. How can
someone think about free college when they're being forced through the
school-to-prison pipeline?
The primary process of a presidential election is a time where acts of
disruption should be encouraged, no matter the target. In a healthy
democracy, protesters' disruptions of candidates' stump speeches would be
celebrated. Almost all of this year's presidential candidates are current or
former governors, U.S. senators, or wealthy captains of industry and have
the means to be able to have their voices heard at any time they like. But
the people dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional
racism don't have that privilege. And if they have to shut down a campaign
event to force candidates and the media to acknowledge their epidemic and
propose solutions, they'll do it.
As someone who has said they are the only candidate who can represent the
oppressed underclass, and who has run on his record of sitting in to protest
Jim Crow laws in the 1960s, Bernie Sanders deserves to be disrupted
precisely for this reason. As unfair as it may seem to his supporters, it
doesn't matter to young black people losing their friends and family today
that a white liberal in the 1960s did what he was expected to do - the only
thing that matters is what he's doing right now.
After getting interrupted at Netroots Nation, storming off the stage, and
refusing to meet with Black Lives Matter protesters, Bernie Sanders wised up
and hired Symone Sanders - a powerful, outspoken, young black woman who
volunteers at the Coalition for Juvenile Justice - to be his national press
secretary after she convinced him that economic inequality and racial
inequality are interconnected. Bernie Sanders used to get called out by
conservatives for omitting racial justice from his stump speech. But on
Sunday he's since revised his website and stump speech to address about
racial injustice issues of mass incarceration, voting rights, police
militarization, and how black people are disproportionately targeted. This
is proof that disruption works. And we need more of it, not less.
If your issue isn't getting talked about, and if a candidate is coming to
your town for a public event, you should absolutely do everything you can to
be heard. Last month, Hillary Clinton got heckled for her horrendous record
on climate change. Protesters greeted Martin O'Malley at his campaign
announcement in Baltimore, saying he "must atone" for propagating
racially-biased policing as Baltimore's mayor. In New Hampshire, Scott
Walker was the subject of a clever photo-op protest, regarding his campaign
donations from the Koch Brothers. Protest is essential to political
discourse, and protest only works if you succeed in changing the
conversation. Was it rude for OutsideAgitators206 to interrupt Bernie
Sanders? Yes. But did they succeed in pushing Black Lives Matter to the
front of the conversation? Absolutely.
Bernie's supporters need to realize that Bernie Sanders is not the leader of
this political revolution. We all are. Let the revolution unfold - Bernie is
welcome to join if he's ready.
An Open Letter To Bernie Sanders Supporters | PopularResistance.Org frame
