National Post (National Edition)
BLM underlines racial divide at conventions
Republicans, Democrats in different worlds
BLM IS A SYMBOL FOR THE WORLD EACH HOLDS TO BE REAL.
PHILADELPHIA• Prosecutors in Baltimore dropped all remaining charges Wednesday against the police officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray, bringing an unexpected end to a case that became a focal point for the American debate on police, violence, race and accountability.
Gray died in the back of police van in 2015, his hands shackled behind him, his spine severed at the neck. His death sparked some of the worst riots in Baltimore history. It became one of a series of highly publicized events across the United States where black men, women and children died after interacting with police. And it helped fuel the growing Black Lives Matter movement.
Perhaps no issue better illustrates the different political convention worlds on display these past two weeks than Black Lives Matter. It’s a cliché at this point to say U.S. Republicans and Democrats exist with different facts. But it is nonetheless true.
They are split by education, geography and, most visibly, race. They read different websites. They watch different channels. They preach different truths. But for each, Black Lives Matter has become a shibboleth of sorts, a symbol for the world each holds to be real.
At the Republican convention in Cleveland last week, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke opened his speech by praising the acquittal of one of the officers accused in Gray’s death. He called the prosecution of Lt. Brian Rice “malicious.” Rice was the highest-ranking officer charged in Gray’s death, which came after he was bundled, unsecured, into the back of the police van.
“Ladies and gentleman, I would like to make something very clear,” Clarke said to enormous cheers from the audience. “Blue lives matter in America.”
That was a common refrain all week in Cleveland, along with All Lives Matter, the other right-wing rejoinder to the Black Lives Matter movement. Vendors sold Blue Lives Matter buttons. Delegates wore Blue Lives Matter shirts. In the arena, the crowd cheered and chanted along when South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns said Donald Trump wouldn’t “pander” on race. “Shout with me!” he said to enthusiastic response. “All lives matter!”
It was a different story altogether Tuesday night at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. As Bernie Sanders supporters demonstrated outside, drawing cameras and reporters away, seven black women took the stage. Even before they could speak, the cheering began. Eventually the noise coalesced into words: Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter.
Geneva Reed-Veal tried to speak first. She held up her hand. “Hello,” she said. “Hello-o-o.” But the chanting continued. Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. “Hey,” she said again, over the din. “I need you all to hear me tonight.”
When the chanting finally slowed, she spoke. “One year ago yesterday, I lived the worst nightmare anyone could imagine. I watched as my daughter, Sandra Bland, was lowered into the ground, in a coffin,” she said. She was “found hanging in a jail cell, after an unlawful traffic stop and an unlawful arrest.”
Reed-Veal bounced as she spoke. She pushed up from her knees and the balls of her feet. She peppered her words with little exclamations. “I am here with Hillary Clinton tonight,” she said, with gusto, “because she is a leader and a mother who will say our children’s names.”
The seven women on stage were all members of Mothers of the Movement. Each had lost a child, some to police, some to civilian vigilantes. Lucia McBath’s son Jordan Davis was shot dead in a Florida parking lot by a man who was frightened by his music. The man was later convicted of firstdegree murder.
“I lived in fear my son would die like this. I even warned him that because he was a young black man, he would meet people who didn’t value his life,” McBath said. “Hillary Clinton isn’t afraid to say that black lives matter.”
On Wednesday night, Barack Obama was scheduled to address the Democratic convention for the last time as president. It has been eight years since he made history as the first black man to be nominated for and then win America’s highest office. But the campaign this year is as much about race as it was in 2008, perhaps even more so.
The black lives/all lives matter divide, visible in Cleveland and Philadelphia these past two weeks, reveals the larger one that still exists in American politics and American life. The parties don’t just disagree on issues such as the deaths of Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland and Jordan Davis. They don’t even see them as having happened in the same kind of world.