Black Lives Matter Protesters Disrupt Bernie Sanders Speech Expose White Supremacy on the Left

Seattle, WA - Yesterday when Black Lives Matter activists took over the stage at a Bernie Sanders presidential speech, they did so to point out the racism of their city, to hold a moment of silence for the one year anniversary of Michael Brown. What they might not have known was that they were going to expose the white supremacy of so called progressive left allies who still refuse to unload those invisible backpacks of privilege.

Black Lives Matter protesters took the stage yesterday to speak out on the overwhelming and blatant systemic racism of Seattle. On a police force that has been consistently violent for so long that they have had to be under federal supervision for the past three years, yet continues to target communities of color. On systemic racism in housing and employment which has led to such gross disparity that 60 percent of the homeless are people of color even though blacks only make up 7 percent of the population. Add to that the fact that blacks make up 35.7 percent of the 1,537,415 prisoners, then yes, they are right, the city is glaringly racist in their policies and practices.

They took to the stage, to call Bernie to account on the fact that he hasn’t come up with a plan to reform the now glaringly racist and classist criminal justice system. To remember the loss of Michael Brown on the one year anniversary of his death at the hands of a white Ferguson, MO police officer. Which set off the latest version of the Black Lives Matter Movement, which, in fact, under numerous other names has been going on for more than a hundred years.

What emerged after Bernie left the stage and went on to other appearances; which drew impressive crowds; as well, was a mass condemnation by the progressive left of these young people who were only asking for their voices to be heard in a nation and a city that has shown them that their lives mean nothing. Even when the white progressives in that city and across the country say POC's lives matter and their oppression is wrong, their words and deeds often tell a different story altogether.

Watching the online conversations across the country in response to what were legitimate complaints, to and about someone who seeks to lead the country for the next four years after Obama’s term in office is over, was a truly eye opening experience. We see racism on the small scale, in policies and systems every day, but there have only been a few times the left has come across in such an oppressive manner as to be blatantly racist.

The display of privilege and white supremacy over the past 24 hours has been so counter to the message of the left as to be shocking. When a political ideology that espouses social and economic justice, that has demanded reform across the board, can not step back and allow those that have been historically and are currently being violently oppressed on a daily, personal and systemic basis, to step up, that group's' dedication to those espoused values must be called into question.

In meeting after meeting over the past five years, the idea of step up, step back has been discussed and pushed forward by a variety of leftist groups. However, at the moment where such an idea ought to be adhered to, those that should be stepping back refuse to yield. Their supporters most of which I will point out are of the same skin color, refuse to yield or to demand that their leader yield so that those who must step up can be heard.

Instead, people who have had their voices suppressed are suppressed once again, except that they didn’t let that fly, not even for one second, they held their ground and spoke over those that would drown out their pleas for the lives of their people. They were forced to hold hostage the voice of the very people that last week claimed to be their allies and accomplices, and who will do so again once it is repopularized.

All of which the majority white left, condemned them for, even as they prattle on about how progressive they are, about diversity of tactics and a great many other things that while valid, wielded by the colonial class are meaningless. Shown to be so the moment those that are oppressed attempt to use them and are shut down with respectability politics.

If you challenge the racism, classism, or privilege of progressives, democrats, and other leftists, you are often met with arguments that are glaringly absurd coming from the privileged mouths that vomit them out, denials, and that age old bane of the liberationist, white fragility.

They can not allow POC's to lead and conduct their own struggle without placing their privileged demands on it. Without calling into question the validity of any and every tactic deployed, as if somehow from their place of privilege they have the experience and understanding of the oppression faced by communities of color, to give them the authority to judge, guide or otherwise influence, the struggle waged by these communities.

And when this tactic produces no fruit, then their credibility is attacked, with wild charges of "well they were paid off by the GOP," as if a community struggling to breath, struggling for life is going to accept money from their killers.

What these folks don’t understand is that they don’t need the approval of the white progressive, their credibility or their respectability.

It is invalid, in their eyes, because it has for too long been a weapon of the colonial class, used to rob them of their dignity, their lives and in the end even the ability to demand change in the way they see fit.

It is not those that disrupt the lives, political events, and other spaces where colonizers are free to speak, move and otherwise enjoy life that must adhere to their oppressors ways of doing things. It is the colonizers that must yield and conform to new ways of thinking, acting and interacting with oppressed communities.