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Saturday, August 8, 2015

Has Black Lives Matter Been Hijacked by the Hillary Clinton Campaign?

So, for the second time in as many months, Black Lives Matter has disrupted a Bernie Sanders speech:
Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally in Dallas in July. (Mike Stone/Reuters)

Bernie Sanders came to Seattle on Saturday with plans to give two speeches.

The first didn’t happen. An appearance by the senator from Vermont at an event celebrating the anniversary of Social Security and Medicare was scuttled after protesters from a local Black Lives Matter chapter took over the stage.

Hours later, Sanders, who has been drawing bigger crowds than any other presidential contender, drew his largest yet: about 15,000 at the college basketball arena where the Washington Huskies play.

Aides said Sanders, who has emerged as the leading alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, spoke to a full house of 12,000 inside the arena and to what police estimated to be an overflow of 3,000 people outside of it.

………

Sanders was the final speaker on a long program held at a city park. Shortly after he took stage, a small group of protesters from a Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter took the microphone and demanded that the crowd hold Sanders “accountable” for not doing enough, in their view, to address police brutality and other issues on the group’s agenda.
The question that I am asking is why we aren't seeing this at any of Hillary Clinton's events?

I am not alone in this. Over at B.A.R., Bruce Dixon is wondering the same thing, though he extends his net to Obama and the "Black political class", and he makes this trenchant observation:
There are ominous signs. Last month folks whom Alicia Garza described as “part of our team” disrupted two minor white male candidates at NetRootsNation, the annual networking event for paid and wannabe paid Democratic party activists, embarrassing them with demands over structural racism and “say her name”. If they were positioning themselves for careers inside the far-flung Democratic party apparatus, it was a smart move, because Hillary wasn't there. Hence they got noticed in that crowd of Democrat operatives without antagonizing the people with the real money and connections.

When Hard Knock Radio's Davey D interviewed Garza on July 21, just before the Cleveland #BlackLivesMatter conference, Garza dropped several more indications that seem to point toward an eventual affiliation with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
The fact that Black Lives Matter appears to be studiously avoiding a confrontation with Hillary Clinton is telling.

I do not have quite the cynicism of Mr. Dixon, but I do find the pattern here to be extremely suspect.

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