“The Nightly Show” hosted representatives from the Black Lives Matter movement on Tuesday and host Larry Wilmore asked the all important questions about white people.
Representatives from Black Lives Matter have disrupted presidential campaign events across the country, ultimately making white people uncomfortable with their hard truths about race in America. So, Wilmore asked Julian Jones, founder of BLM-Worcester, and Daunasia Yancey, founder of BLM-Boston, about this method of protest.
“Why do you think it’s so important to make white people feel uncomfortable?” Wilmore asked.
Jones said it’s a part of a broader campaign of keeping presidential hopefuls accountable for their policies and (lack of) actions on black lives.
“All the Democratic nominees, are not showing up for black lives,” Jones said. “Bernie Sanders, for as much as he was walking with MLK, he ain’t walking that walk now,” Jones said.
Jones and Yancey also hinted at plans to disrupt real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.
Watch the video, from Comedy Central, below:
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So is it fair to ask what, specifically, they would like the candidates to do? A laundry list of actions that candidates, with absolutely no power to influence anything, can take while still candidates to get BLM support?
Promises to take action if elected can be forgotten quickly.
I’d like to know from someone in the know what BLM expects to get from this, other than visibility. The candidates can’t do much of anything for them, as candidates.
Exactly what they are doing right now, elevating the group’s visibility and thus injecting their issues into the national debate. They want to see their issues brought up, for example, in the debates…and discussed specifically in their framing, i.e…not generically about mass incarceration, specifically about black mass incarceration.
The problem, which Hillary was pointing out, is that they don’t seem to have clearly defined objectives that can be articulated. Very similarly to OWS, they are very reluctant to getting pinned down to any one set of objectives.
And as you pointed out, unless BLM changes their tactics, they are fated to go the same route as OWS. Their antics don’t make me uncomfortable, they make me annoyed. Calling Democrats racist, while not proposing a single policy action that they want, and leaving the R’s alone, makes me want to give them the finger, not help them. It is the Dem party that is working for change. Maybe not fast enough, but this isn’t going to speed the process. Hillary was right in what she said to them.
But that was the downfall of OWS as they accomplished basically nothing.
The main problem I have with the criticisms of #blacklivesmatter is that people keep getting shot, cops who shoot the kids keep getting off, and nothing seems to be changing.
I understand that you can say, “Well, you’re not getting anything done, and you’re too vague.” But whatever it is that we’ve been doing until now (mostly nothing) hasn’t been getting anything done either.
I just don’t think it’s viable to say, I know kids are getting shot, but trust us, we’ll get to it, but first we have to win this election. If your hair catches on fire, you’re going to focus on that, to the exclusion of everything else, until you put the fire out. I think that unarmed kids (and adults) getting shot by cops is a “hair on fire” kind of problem. It deserves to sit on the top of the stack.
Having said that, I totally get where Hillary is coming from. I think there’s wisdom in it. I think she’s right. But I’m not so sure she’s right that I’m going to suggest that the activists who take the other side of it should shut up. Their position is legitimate, and they have the right (and a duty, really) to play their hand as they deem best, according to their conscience.
Also, OWS did a lot. It didn’t fix the world, but it inspired a lot of people, and put the issue of inequality on the table and into our discourse. The discussion we have now is completely different than it would have been. What those folks did was important and heroic.
I live in NYC, and I would point to Occupy Sandy as a great example of what came out of OWS. They helped a lot of real people who had real problems. And again, they didn’t fix the world, but they did make it a little better.