You all have been speculating about the motives and associations of the protestors for days. Now you have an opportunity to hear them from the woman herself, yet you come up with an excuse not to listen.
I posted an article and was told I had no position to speak because I was white. Then I post a black radio show, and I hear more excuses for why people don't wan to listen.
TWIB is an influential radio show among black people. I posted it in case some people are actually interested in what motivates the protestors, how and why they chose the targets and tactics they do. Rather than speculating as to what they are about, you care hear it from the woman herself.
What is this cause of yours? Getting Sanders elected? That's a "cause"? In what conception of activism does a man's political career constitute a cause? When I vote, it won't be a cause. I'll just be casting a vote. That is all it is. Politicians are not causes. Black Lives Matters is a cause.
Obviously the black community is not a monolith, nor do they all agree that black people need to be grateful for what white "progressives" allow them. Clarence Thomas is black. Ben Carson is black. They have the same rights as every other black person to express their political views, even if they do not reflect the views of the majority of black people. The same goes for the BLM activists and the certain percentage of African Americans who support Bernie, though I would be interested to see poll results showing how many remain after these recent events.
Some black people are also are saying our lives have value, our lives matter. For them, their lives are more important than Sanders career or your feelings. I happen to share that view. I will stand with human life, human rights, and racial equality over any politician or any group of people who find that movement discomforting. Too many folks here focus entirely on their feelings and the notion that Bernie is too important to be troubled by black women complaining about black people being killed. Black folks should just know he is the best they can ever hope for; they need to keep their mouths shut and be deferential because it hurts the feelings of some white folks to have any criticism directed their way. They are so certain they are superior, no cause, no activism, no movement for human lives can possibly matter as much as their feelings. Hence the concept of white fragility, which is the central impediment to anti-racism.
As the quote from MLK about white moderates reveals, the central impediment to fighting racism is not Klansmen and NeoNazis, but people who believe themselves well-intentioned but criticize tactics and activism.
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'" -Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
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