Breaking News! "Activist Who Interrupted Bernie Were Shape-Shifting Reptilian Assassins from the 8th Dimension"

Fist Dap The Portland Intelligencer



Cue in music from the Twilight Zone

"We may never know the answer to this mystery. It may be that there is no right answer. Ultimately, it all comes down to what you truly believe in your heart. Would a couple of black women really show up and suggest that the progressive left has an unacknowledged streak of white supremacy? Would they really speak out-of-turn, as if to suggest that they have been on the receiving end of both brutal oppression and empty promises — two distinctly different, but equally pernicious, forms of racism — for five centuries, here, in the promised land of the free?

Or is it simpler to conclude that these were just a couple of Satan’s reptile-like shapeshifting alien assassins, fresh from the 8th dimension, sent here by Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton & George Soros to prevent the best friend that the black community ever had from getting elected?"

Time will tell the truth.

#BernieSanders Supporters can dish out the name calling, personal attacks, insults and lies, but they can't take them. #ThereIsMoreThanAWhiffOfHypocrisy

8 Reasons Why the Mainstream Media's Propagation of the Forgiveness Narrative is Problematic for Black People

#FeelTheBern?  Sanders supporters continue to attack the messenger because they can't attack the message.  Their personal attacks on the Black Lives Matter Movement's female activist are every bit as offensive and sexist as Donald Trumps attack on Megyn Kelly.  Their attempt to discredit the Black Lives Matter Movement,  define the real Black Lives Matter Movement. and discredit the character of the activist is pure paternalism, which is another form of racism.  

Notably, it wasn’t two Black women who kept Bernie from speaking in Seattle. It was a White man, a Bernie supporter, who organized the event who shut it down, said the event was over, and informed the crowd that Sanders would not be speaking because he couldn’t agree with the “methods of direct action” of the Black women in front of him.

Let me give it to you straight, Bernie Sanders supporters don't decide who/what is best for Black people.  We don't need you to "take care of us".  We will decide who are leaders are.   

Respectability politics definitely play a role here. The argument goes: If these loud, destructive, rude protesters would only mellow out, they'd realize that you catch more flies with honey. Don't upset or alienate your white allies. Don't piss on your best friend. Don't put your best friend in a compromising position. He can't help you until he gets on the inside. So be nice, play fair, and wait your turn. You're making black people look bad.

Bernie Sanders, or any other democratic candidate will not win the primary without the vote of black women.  Fact.  Calling young black women who are trying to make a difference idiots and childish, horrible, brats, is not the way to win the black female vote.  These young women are the Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hammers of our time.  They are our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, cousins, friends, and nieces. We stand by them and with them.  Stop with the angry black woman narrative. Yes, we are angry because we are tired of crying over the graves of our loved ones.  You will never know our fear, or our pain. therefore you don't get to decide how we express it.  You got that?

Don't condemn our anger. Don't denounce our pain as savage. What's savage is the cruel inhumanity and brutality of the police. Condemn that.~Amandla Stenberg

Bernie Sanders supporters just don't get it.  Why should black women support him after this?  How are we to believe he is the person who will best address our concerns when his supporters call us ignorant and delusional because we won't go along to get along?  Your progressiveness is not enough, we need more. 

Two Black women called for a moment of silence for Mike Brown a year after he was gunned down, left bleeding in the street for 4.5 hours, and White “progressives” shouted, booed, and chanted the name of a White man throughout that moment.
How much more committed to a “negative peace” can we get than literally shouting down the memory of a Black youth whose murder helped to spark this movement?
And how much more “devoted to ‘order'” can we be than to lecture Black people about what direct actions are and are not “hurting your cause”? (Notably, this language I’ve seen from countless White folks shows that we do not see the cause of racial justice as OUR cause – it’s that cause over there that we will tolerate so long as it doesn’t disrupt our Bernie rally.)
And how much more of a “stumbling block” can our self-proclaimed “allyship” be to racial justice when it’s so feeble as to proclaim, “I am a strong ally of the Black Lives Matter movement, but I’m not sure how to be an ally when they are this disrespectful to the only candidate that has actually done anything for minorities” (actual quote from one of the 15 or so social media threads I’m following as I write this article)?

Black Lives Matter is not a moment, it's a movement. A movement created by three strong, black, bold, intelligent, brave, young women.  They are our hope for the future of our republic.  EYE stand by them and with them all the darn way, all the darn day.  As much as it pains me to quote Dubya, you're either with us, or you're against us.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.~Frederick Douglas

Sanders needs to, as the young people say, get some of his supporters in check, before they drive more supporters like me away.

EYE was a #BernieSanders supporter before EYE met some of his supporters and #FeltTheBern

The Black Lives Matter movement is being persecuted by some (not to be confused with all) Bernie Sanders supporters and the media is happy to help them.  Yes, he is drawing huge crowds...of white people. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with huge crowds of white people per say, but doesn't it strike you as odd (for lack of a better word)  a campaign that says it's bringing people together is well.......not?

I see these protests as less about the individual candidates themselves and more about how their White base refuses to center Black lives and Black issues. It’s notable that White Bernie supporters, who consider themselves the most progressive of us all, shouted down and booed Black women who dared to force Blackness into the center of White space.
Because let’s be honest, every Bernie rally is White space.

And no, hiring a new black public face and reminding black people Sanders marched with Martin Luther King Jr. is not going to score any Brownie (pun intended) points.  As a matter of fact, it illustrates how clueless, at best, condescending at worst,  the Sanders campaign is.   Heck, lots of people  can say they "marched with King".

And that is commendable, but we are talking about people who are dying right now. And we want what is happening today to be addressed by those in power. Consistently bringing that up in defense for lack of action on fighting racial inequality and police brutality as a senator just makes you sound like you’re asking for a free pass to inaction today. If you want to be in power now, you need to be addressing what is happening now.

But I digress, let's get back to the subject at hand.  Prior to the Black Lives Matter Protest I was leaning toward Sanders because I honestly believed he was a populist, progressive, fair, honest, candidate with bonafide Civil Rights credentials, or as they call it in my neighborhood "Street Cred". But the reaction of some of his supporters to the Black Lives Matter Movement scare me.  I've heard some of the most hateful, sexist, racist language and unfounded accusations leveled at the Black Lives Matter Movement, and towards myself for defending them, that has me questioning the entire Bernie Sanders campaign.  And before you start screaming Bernie shouldn't be judged by his supporters let me say this,  you can tell a lot about a candidate by who their supporters are.

Bernie Sanders has a Black Lives Matter Problem and a White Privilege Problem.

I find it hard to give much credence to white folks like these who are telling black people fighting for racial justice, “You’re doing it wrong.”
After centuries of discrimination, terror, and suppression, to suggest that they be nicer about things and to stop making white people uncomfortable strikes me as the epitome of white privilege.

Sanders needs to, as the young people say, get some of his supporters in check, before they drive more supporters like me away.

Stop acting like black people are stupid. We are politically savvy. And black women especially have a higher voter turnout than anyone else. No candidate can win without black women, yet a bunch of black women stood up and expressed their feelings on an issue that is literally killing our people and white progressives are acting like they were a bunch of uppity Negroes who didn’t know their place… These are young people who are learning as they go. Every movement has growing pains. I’ve seen too many people who are writing off their efforts because they don’t think the effort is being organized in the right way. That is not helpful. White allies need to give these young people space to grow, space to fail, space to learn. And they need to amplify their voices.

– Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst for RH Reality Check and co-host of This Week in Blackness Prime

Marissa Janae Johnson Speaks: #BLM, Sanders & White Progressives™ | #TWIBnation

Listen and learn about what really happened at the Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle.  The Black Lives Matter Seattle Activist are under a vicious and sustained, media enabled attack.  EYE stand with them and for what they stand for.

And how much more “devoted to ‘order'” can we be than to lecture Black people about what direct actions are and are not “hurting your cause”? (Notably, this language I’ve seen from countless White folks shows that we do not see the cause of racial justice as OUR cause – it’s that cause over there that we will tolerate so long as it doesn’t disrupt our Bernie rally.)

"The reaction to these protesters shed light on the hidden Seattle that most black people know well — the Seattle that prefers politeness to true progress, the Seattle that is more offended by raised voices than by systemic oppression, the Seattle that prioritizes the comfort of middle-class white liberals over justice for people of color."

Was blind but now I see

On this, nearly the one year anniversary of the ruthless murder of Mike Brown, we honor Black lives lost by doing the unthinkable, the unapologetic, and the unrespectable. Out of radical love for our Black brothers and sisters, we put our lives and our bodies on the line to testify to their persecution and resilience. We join together in Black love to #SayHerName and declare that #BlackLivesMatter, understanding that our love will disrupt the complicity and corruption of our anti-Black society; GOP, Democrat, and otherwise.

There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost. We will ensure this by any means necessary.

With the strength of our ancestors and for the future of our children,

Black Lives Matter Seattle Co-Founders

Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford

#BowDownBernie
#SayHerName
#IfIDieInPoliceCustody
‪#‎NotOneMoreDeportation‬
‪#‎FreePalestine‬
‪#‎MikeBrown‬
#BlackLivesMatter

"Our tactics have ALWAYS been questioned. Our voices...our humanity is more important than rules, convenience, and political correctness".~Black Lives Matter Also-BIRMINGHAM

Let's talk about Social Security and Wealth Inequality so we won't have to talk about #BlackLivesMatter

Tell me again how the oppressed, the incarcerated, the community(ies) being murdered owe Bernie Sanders ANYTHING at all, the !entitlement!

— Pino Saracino (@DoRoachesChill) August 9, 2015

As you know by now, some Bernie Sanders supporters have their Knickers in a Knot because those uppity BlackLivesMatterSeattle women disrespected him by interrupting his speech on Social Security to a packed audience.  What happened next was an organized  ,and pathetic attempt to attack the messenger because that's just what they do when they want to marginalize and discredit legitimate concerns.  After all who wants to talk about Black Lives and how they don't matter?

Here is what some (not to be confused with all) Bernie Sanders don't understand, no one is attacking Sanders, or his long Civil Rights record, we are attacking what he chooses to talk about,  to be honest, I see a pattern here, when African Americans try and get the so called liberal/progressive candidate to address our issues we told to STFU, STFD, stop whining, and support Bush, I mean, Obama, I mean, Bernie, or else.

Because here’s the thing – what’s powerful about these interruptions from Black women is less how it has changed the tone of the Democratic campaigns and more about what they have exposed in the White left.
I see these protests as less about the individual candidates themselves and more about how their White base refuses to center Black lives and Black issues. It’s notable that White Bernie supporters, who consider themselves the most progressive of us all, shouted down and booed Black women who dared to force Blackness into the center of White space.
Because let’s be honest, every Bernie rally is White space.

Never mind the fact those uppity Black Lives Matter Seattle women succeeded in making Bernie Sanders previously unknown racial justice platform known.

The activists who interrupted Sanders’ speech in Seattle over the weekend said his “blatantly silencing response” at the Netroots Nations conference in July — when he reacted to an interruption from Black Lives Matter by threatening to leave instead of listening to their message — as their motivation. The Seattle leaders blasted both Sanders and his supporters for failing to show concern about the forces harming people of color in their own community, from the school-to-prison pipeline to police violence to gentrification.
Yet Sanders has not been the sole target of protesters. Activists also shouted down former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) at the Netroots Nation conference in July, demanding he and the audience acknowledge the recent death of Sandra Bland in police custody. Instead, he replied: “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” He also presented a history of his record as mayor of Baltimore that conveniently left out the zero tolerance policing that disproportionately targeted residents of color.

Eye am going to admit, I was leaning towards supporting Bernie Sanders until his supporters showed their true colors (pun intended), and I was reminded of this blog by Paul Street on Black Agenda.com

Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand the history and contemporary workings of race in the United States, and cannot, therefore, grasp the economics of race, either. His campaign lacks “a forthright acknowledgement of the special, vicious super-exploitation, torture and oppression experienced by Black America.” He virtually ignores housing apartheid and mass Black incarceration, and lets U.S. militarism off the hook for stealing resources.

And then there is this blog written by Bruce Dixon, accusing Bernie Sanders of Sheep Dogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016. 

Vermont senator and ostensible socialist Bernie Sanders is playing the sheepdog candidate for Hillary Clinton this year. Bernie's job is to warm up the crowd for Hillary, herding activist energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2016 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils.

 Where to go and what to do?

The Democrats hope the Black Lives Matter movement, like the Occupy Wall Street movement, will disappear amid the hype of the coming election season. “The Democrats have mounted a systematic cooption-repression response that will intensify as the election season – and Black cities – heat up.” The Democrats understand that, for the movement to succeed, their party’s power over Black America must be broken.

"until this country values all lives equally, it is both reasonable and indeed necessary to specify the lives it seems to value less."~Charles Blow

EYE don't want to hear one word about #DeAndreJohnson

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There are two sides to every story.

Update~ On Columbus Day- A Brief History of the USA

Why are we still celebrating Columbus Day?

With Columbus Day upon us once again, we must ask the question: Why, exactly, are we still celebrating Columbus Day?

Seattle votes to celebrate 'Indigenous People Day" on Columbus Day

The resolution that passed unanimously Monday honors the contributions and culture of Native Americans and the indigenous community in Seattle. Indigenous Peoples’ Day will be celebrated on the second Monday in October.
Tribal members and other supporters say the move recognizes the rich history of people who have inhabited the area for centuries.
“This action will allow us to bring into current present day our valuable and rich history, and it’s there for future generations to learn,” said Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation on the Olympic Peninsula, who is also president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians.

A darker side of Columbus emerges in US classrooms

Columbus’ stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.
“The whole terminology has changed,” said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. “You don’t hear people using the world ‘discovery’ anymore like they used to. ‘Columbus discovers America.’ Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?”

 No post about guns and black people would be complete without this: