How would you as president “dismantle structural racism in the United States”?
When they disrupted the Netroots Nation (NN15) Presidential Town Hall, Black Lives Matter protesters had one primary question for the candidates. If you watch the videos, you can see that neither Martin O’Malley nor Bernie Sanders answered that question. (None of the other 15+ presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, attended the event.)
Three weeks later, Black Lives Matter protesters are still waiting for an answer. In Seattle, they disrupted another Sanders’ rally, prompting him to walk out.
Clinton said Black Lives Matter in a Facebook chat a few days after the fracas at NN15 and in an April 29 speech she covered many of the Black Lives Matter issues such as body camera on all law enforcement officers, systemic discrimination, the murder of innocent, unarmed black people at the hands of police, ending mass incarceration, and much more. She’s also denounced voter suppression laws as reviving “the old demons of discrimination.” Since his public display of frustration with Black Lives Matter protesters at NN15, Sanders has mentioned the names of a few wrongfully murdered blacks in his stump speeches and has condemned the arrest and death of Sandra Bland. (Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley have also reacted to Bland’s death here.)
OK… it’s been three weeks since the NN15 protest and a year since Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson. And I’m still waiting for an answer to the original question: How would you as president “dismantle structural racism in the United States”? The protesters made it clear that they wanted an answer– not a history lesson or a stump speech— from every presidential candidate. It’s clear from social media that I’m not the only person waiting for an answer.
In the meantime, I have been pondering that question and how I would answer…