The Democratic National Committee has agreed to host a presidential town hall devoted to issues of racial inequality, according to letters obtained by the Washington Post on Wednesday.
DNC Chief Executive Officer Amy K. Dacey wrote to leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and to racial justice activist DeRay Mckesson saying that the DNC “would be happy” to promote an event that will “address racism in America.”
This announcement came one day after Black Lives Matter organizers posted a petition on Color of Change asking DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) to add more presidential debates to the six that are currently scheduled—and to devote one exclusively to racial justice.
In her letters, Dacey affirmed that the DNC has no intention of adding more official debates to the calendar.
Activists’ response to the announcement appeared to be split.
While Mckesson told the Washington Post he was looking into the possibility of organizing a town hall meeting, Black Lives Matter organizer Elle Hearns said she was disappointed by the DNC’s decision.
“Their response to our request is unsatisfactory,” Hearns told the Post’s Wesley Lowrey.
Black Lives Matter activists have criticized Democratic candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and Hillary Clinton for paying insufficient attention to issues like mass incarceration and systemic inequality. In their petition, which gained almost 10,000 signatures since it was posted Tuesday morning, they wrote that black voters “deserve substantive responses and policy recommendations” on these topics.
The town hall format has been offered as a platform to other liberal groups, including MoveOn.org.
Frankly, I’d rather hear the Dem’s talk about this issue in a less structured format than a debate. I think the ideas will flow better.
It seems no candidate has a solid position to defend, and they could all use a bit of help from an interested audience.
Frankly, I’m wondering why I haven’t seen a SINGLE report of the BLMers demanding the same of the GOTP.
Debates are a bad format anyways. I would be thrilled if the DNC replaced ALL their debates with town halls instead.
Debates encourage gotcha moments, sniping between candidates, and one-liners instead of allowing voters an opportunity to question candidates about their policies, or allowing candidates to explain their positions.
I’m glad that the BLM movement is getting a Town Hall, and I’m glad the DNC isn’t adding more debates which, I reiterate, is a horrible format for conveying information (there is a reason you have debate competitions where teams can be asked to defend objectively wrong positions…all a debate winner tells you is that that winner is good at debating).
and people will be outraged by their ability to be credibly outraged by this very appropriate proposal
My sentiments exactly. I’m starting to think it smells a bit like the GOP co-opting this BLM crap and trying to use it to bludgeon Dems in an attempt to drum up a narrative for the MSM to latch onto about bad blood supposedly existing between BLM and Dems and the black/minority communities in general. Who knows if that’s true, and I’m certainly not wearing my tinfoil hat over it, but I remember the whole PUMA thing stinking to high heaven of the same sort of tactics.