If Bernie Loses @ShaunKing @KillerMike @CornelWest and Too Many Others

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

If your chosen candidate loses, which the delegate math seems is most likely to happen, you’re going to owe a lot of people an apology.

Not your fellow Bernie supporters for not winning. I mean, OK you could do that, but a candidates failures are their own. So yeah, don’t apologize for that.

Rather examine the overt, relentless, glaring racism and sexism flowing through your social media in support of Bernie Sanders. Now examine the fact that you’ve not only let it ride, you’ve perpetuated or created some of it. And if you’re not ashamed, examine it again because you should be.

You’re not allowed to be anti-racist leaders or “woke” Black leaders speakers of the truth or teachers of the facts or leaders, or speakers or teachers  at all if you aren’t willing to fucking lead, fucking speak, fucking teach. Which maybe lets Killer Mike off the hook because I don’t know that being a “leader” or a “speaker” or a “teacher” is so much your thing as opposed to being an entertainer. So fine, but you’ve still got to answer for the patently false, deeply sexist characterization of what Ms. Willaford and Ms. Johnson did in Seattle. Let me count the ways:

• They are not “little girls,” they are women.
• Senator Sanders did not give, hand, or in any way welcome them to the stage.
• They took the stage and held it in conjunction with white accomplices.
• Those white accomplices were necessary to protect them from the largely white crowd who, among other things, were calling for them to be attacked and tazed.
• Senator Sanders stood there while those calls happened and said nothing.
• After Senator Sanders rage quit the crowd got even more unruly and those white accomplices were necessary to keep his fans from physically accosting those two Black women.

No matter how hard you try you can’t whitewash the facts and since this happened in August, since you have some store of funds and fame and and I can only presume a cellular device of some kind, you could have put forward the least amount of effort and fact checked that shit before speaking. You lessened their agency and denied their victory in service to a white man who can barely speak two sentences about Blackness before he pivots back to whiteness or colorblindness which is still whiteness.

You should be ashamed and you you owe a lot of people an apology, not the least of which being Ms. Willaford and Ms. Johnson.

And you Shaun, oh Shaun. I used to like you. You’ve spent an inordinate amount of time defending your place and your voice as a defender and spokesperson for Black people and the value of our lives. You’ve also spent a not small amount of time highlighting the threats of violence ad death that you and your family have been subject to. Your failure in this case, your, deliberate failure to address and act against the relentless sexist and racist commentary coming from fellow Sanders supporters on your feeds. This is not stuff you missed. These are people you interacted with and responded to and let slide because you value their support of your political candidate more than respect for women or Black people.

You consistently place your support of a white male politician over that of Black people and women and, you know, Black women.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

That shame should make you stop.

You should reassess and change your behavior.

You won’t. You’re already attempting to pivot away from possibly voting for Clinton and encouraging people to do the same in an effort to build another party. Which, of course you are. Of. Course. You. Are. You are well off and educated and assimilated and you will be the good Black man to protect what you have. I don’t actually begrudge you that. It’s a choice people make to protect themselves and their families. Fine.

Other people, the people you’ve been allowing your followers to belittle and degrade for months? We will suffer to a far greater degree than you will. Those of us on the intersections? We will die.

But why should you care at all about that? Well, there are a lot of reasons that you already know. The issue is that you don’t appear to care. And let’s not ignore the fact that, you’re maneuvering for a high placed position in whatever that party turns out to be.

Yep. I said it. It’s true and we all know it. If you don’t like it, then change it.

Personally, I think both Democratic candidates are pretty much equally worthless. But as an activist, I am an adult who recognizes that great harm is worse than very little good. That’s how adults work.

Learn this. Do better or please be quiet, because you are making a lot of noise and taking up a lot of space that should be filled by people who are actually invested in fostering social justice rather than helping themselves.

All three of you, and all of the other people reading this who are equally guilty of this shit need to do better. Start right now.