Occupy Wall Street: A Cautionary Tale For Black Lives Matter

[portlander23]

WBUR: Occupy Wall Street: A Cautionary Tale For Black Lives Matter

Will Black Lives Matter go the way of the Occupy movement, pushed into self-inflicted irrelevance?

You remember Occupy. That movement galvanized attention to economic inequality four years ago, only to shrivel from its allergy to the kind of structure and hierarchy needed for an enduring leadership and agenda. Mentioning it in the same breath as Black Lives surely will anger admirers of the latter, given the good it has done by splashing the face of white America with the icy reality of police oppression in too many communities of color.

Yet a tactical blunder this summer and one arguable instance of hypocrisy by Black Lives have alienated some of the very liberals you’d expect to rally behind the movement.

The tactical mistake involved disrupting speeches by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in particular. A democratic socialist stressing America’s economic inequality, the Vermont senator gave short-shrift to racism and policing, or so Black Lives argued. Yet he’s also a veteran of the ’60s movement and a natural ally of Black Lives, and antagonizing your allies is just dumb, especially when the stakes are literally life and death for some African-Americans. It was also undemocratic to choke off Sanders’s free speech rights: He has proposed specific solutions for inequality, which is crushing black lives.

It would be a different story had Black Lives first tried to meet with Sanders to talk out their concerns. In fact, they did so only after protesting his speeches, and at his initiative. Unsurprisingly, Sanders added remarks about America’s race problem to his stump speech.

I think this is a misreading of both the current situation and history. Yes Occupy Wall Street as it existed in 2011 no longer exists, but that sort of angry doesn't just dissipate. It transformed into projects like Occupy our Homes and other groups.

For me, the real test of whether or not Occupy "worked" is what was in the impact. Before Occupy, the press and lawmakers were focused on austerity.

After Occupy, the nation started talking about inequality. It didn't matter that Occupy didn't have a list of demands or that the group alienated certain people with their tactics, they changed the national conversation. In 2015 we have candidates in every party talking about economic justice; you can't escape it.

Black Lives Matter is having a similar effect, perhaps even faster than Occupy did. You can complain all you want about BLM interrupting allies instead of enemies, but the allies are the people BLM needs to move. You can argue tactics all you want, you can't argue the outcome.

Would Elizabeth Warren have given her recent speech without BLM? Maybe, but it sure as hell wouldn't have ignited consciousness the way it did.

After BLM interrupted Mr. Sanders, he added a distinct racial justice message to his campaign and he's been a better candidate for it.

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Adds Young Black Woman As New Public Face

“One of my suggestions, he took it and ran with it on Meet the Press, is that racial inequality and economic inequality are parallel issues,” she said. “I you know, economic equality is an issue. It’s something we need to address. But for some people it doesn’t matter how much money you make, it doesn’t matter where you went to school, it doesn’t matter what your parents do. It doesn’t matter that Sandra Bland had a job and was on her way to teach for her alma mater. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.”

Bernie Sanders took to the advice, Symone Sanders said. She also confronted him with one of the criticisms he faced earlier in the summer, when Black Lives Matter activists rejected his statements about his past civil rights movement work.

(Tip of the hat to Number23 for the citation)

Sanders meets with Black Lives Matter activists

“In the end, I think he got it,” McKesson tweeted.

McKesson, who also has met with officials from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, lauded Sanders for his “candor” and “willingness to be pushed” on his policy and approach. He said he and others also asked Sanders to address police abuse of civil asset forfeiture and said he anticipates Sanders will address that issue in his platform.

McKesson wrote that there were moments during the meeting where they didn’t agree.

“Importantly, he was willing to be pushed and he was,” tweeted McKesson, founder and co-editor of the Ferguson Protestor Newsletter.

Are we willing to be pushed, is the question.

We should take a page from Bernie on this one. He spent less time complaining about the tactics and more time responding to the substance.

Movements are not the same as and do not function in the same way as electoral campaigns. The outcomes aren't as cut-and-dry as election results. Movements change minds. Those changes ripple forward.

In many ways, this is an absurd conversation and an absurd point of view. Liberals arguing with activists, with whom they ostensibly agree, on how they raise awareness. BLM interrupted a few speeches. They didn't bomb anything.

We should spend more time listening. If you still don't like the tactics but agree with the message, quit complaining and stage your own protest.

[cpompilo]

1. The author fails to grasp the difference between a movement and a organizational order.

A movement changes the dialog and leads to societal change. "The kind of structure and hierarchy needed for an enduring leadership and agenda" solidifies and stagnates the dialog turning it into advocacy and ideology and thereby killing the dialog and its transformative powers. Movements in general and OWS in particular are transformational and enduring in that they transform people to think and (more importantly) act in a different way. Organizations consistently fail to achieve this transformative ability.

[randome]

2. But without an organization, it will not be a lasting change.

The Occupy forum in DU is going on 4 months now without a single post. That tells you its relevance today. And I agree completely that BLM needs an organizational structure or it will have the same temporary effect as did OWS.

Those who said OWS' lack of organization was by design are disingenuous. Someone needed to decide there was to be no organization but no one did that. It's just that no one wanted to step up to the task.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[MisterP]

3. of course the a lot of this is the natural movement of ... movements

centralized or "flat," activism has to move in waves and reconfigure itself as events and alliances shift--and I don't mean "X gets dropped and Y picked up as the newest friend," but that the political situation can swing wildly

the GOP is seeing a massive "populist" shock and moved beyond even the Tea Party's rhetoric, the puppet cutting its strings for real now; many Republican members are warming up to Sanders because he's not the same old duopoly feinting and they're disgusted with fundie antics; many are even questioning whether giving the rich more money means people who aren't rich get some too; in the Democrats it was Obama who unleashed the FBI to run down OWS Tahrir-style and Emmanuel who built up the Veal Pen; Clinton represents groups in order to run for office, Sanders runs for office in order to represent people

every little change ripples outwards