In 2016 race, black votes also matter
A year after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the anger and frustration among young African-American men and women isn’t subsiding.
The anniversary of Brown’s death was marked by demonstrations last week in Ferguson, including more violent unrest as well as the arrests of dozens for peaceful acts of civil disobedience.
The police shootings of more than two dozen other unarmed men since Ferguson — from Ezell Ford in Los Angeles to Christian Taylor in Arlington, Texas — have pushed thousands to the streets in cities across America over the past year. But are politicians listening? Last week, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush became the latest 2016 contender to find himself in the crosshairs of activists of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Bush, according to news reports, abruptly ended a campaign event in North Las Vegas after facing tough questions from the audience about the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police and their treatment in the criminal justice system.
The former Florida governor stumbled after Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic hopeful, had in recent weeks twice clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters. The protests have confounded some backers of Sanders, a so- cialist who has surged ahead of the polls over presumptive frontrunner Hillary Clinton while touting his populist economic message.
Sanders’ message has resonated with white progressives, but the Black Lives Matter protesters have taken him — as well as long-shot Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley — to task for giving short shrift to the issues of racial injustice and police brutality.
Activists last week also attempted to confront Clinton at a campaign event in New Hampshire, but were locked out after the event reached capacity. Clinton met with the activists afterward, but they walked away unimpressed.
“She was projecting that what the Black Lives Matter movement needs to do is X, Y, and Z — to which we pushed back (to say) that it is not her place to tell the Black Lives Matter movement or black people what to do, and that the real work doesn’t lie in the victim-blaming that that implies,” activist Julius Jones told
The New Republic after the meeting. “And that was a rift in the conversation."
In the course of a presidential campaign, there’s no shortage of gaffes, scandals and miscues to seize upon that pundits and spinmeisters will inevitably point to as “turning points” in a race.
On the right, Republicans are relishing Clinton’s inability to put to rest long-lingering questions about her use of a private email sever to conduct business as secretary of State. The FBI took possession of the server as part of the Justice Department’s probe into the handling of classified information, leading some to wonder whether the issue will linger through the general election.
Nobody is enjoying the rise of Republican front-runner Donald Trump more than the Democrats.
Every time Trump opens his mouth, and with every poll that shows him in the lead of the 17candidate GOP field, Democrats say a special prayer of thanks and become a little more confident that they’ll have four more years in the White House.
But for the candidates, particularly Democrats, the importance of properly addressing the seething anger of the Black Lives Matter movement shouldn’t be understated.
It was a coalition of young and black and brown voters that led Obama to victories in 2008 and 2012.
They will be no less important for Democrats in 2016.
For the candidates, the importance of properly addressing the seething anger of the Black Lives Matter movement shouldn’t be understated.