2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumI proudly sit with John Lewis under the bus
If I have to choose who I want to stand (or sit) with - John Lewis or the folks who are going after him because he's not feeling the Bern - it's not even close.
I am delighted to be under the bus with this great, decent and humble man. I know I'm in good company and on the right side of the angels . . .
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MADem
(135,425 posts)
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)Take some friends with ya. Plenty of room. Big bus.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)Hillary does it and so does some of her supporters.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)retrowire
(10,345 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)retrowire
(10,345 posts)Hope you're doing well btw.
cali
(114,904 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)thread that could be classified as throwing him under the bus.
seriously, stop. 
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)Asking why a man of Lewis' integrity would purposely word something the way he did is not throwing him under the bus. It's asking a question.
MrWendel
(1,881 posts)him. So a man with his "integrity" is lying right? He sold his soul because hes not "Feelin' the Burn?"
JustAnotherGen
(31,828 posts)
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)and even more on Rep. Lewis' FB page.
Good going Bernie Supporters *not*.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Not some f***** keyboard warriors that like to act brave on the internet!
John Lewis is a HERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)
Punkingal
(9,522 posts)No one is above criticism. Not one person, historically, or currently.
pinebox
(5,761 posts)How do you endorse a candidate who ran a racist ad against Obama in 2008? I simply do NOT get it. At all.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)He knows, and has worked with HRC, personally. He, also, knows, and has worked with Sanders, personally.
And with that knowledge, he chooses to side with HRC in these Primaries.
I trust his "information."
handmade34
(22,756 posts)
Hekate
(90,714 posts)Some hearts for you -->. 
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)
jillan
(39,451 posts)during this time.
Both people were working for the civil rights movement - of course there is no bigger hero than John Lewis but that doesn't mean Bernie was not also being an activist during that time.
So what if they didn't meet?
It's a confusing argument, that's all.
JustAnotherGen
(31,828 posts)One got beaten.
Bowonders involved - but one was willing to risk his life for it.
They don't compare for me.
Now - I'm not getting why it matters who people endorse. Lewis has paid his dues in America and can say what he wants and anyone is free to disagree. However he is not obligated to explain over and over and over again why.
He's a bit of an exalted one in the black community so I highly doubt we'll see push back from Sander's campaign. We (black Americans) don't touch him - he's a man of integrity and well - - "grown assed man" (song evolution of a man for that reference) - his credentials on black issues and the black Americn experience are impeccable.
Going after him is not a good idea. You might as well kick puppies in front of black Americans if you do that. So if Sanders knows that (and I believe he does) - his supporters need to learn that. It will back fire. He's an elder - a damn good one. Leave him alone.
Nanjeanne
(4,961 posts)Its possible to have had respect for John Lewis and be extremely disappointed that he can't just endorse his candidate in a positive way without demeaning her opponent.
Skid Rogue
(711 posts)Nice post.
ismnotwasm
(41,989 posts)Right there with you.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)But whatever floats your boat.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Because I don't think "did he meet everyone that worked for the cause?" is throwing anyone under the bus. Frankly, I'd be shocked if he did remember him. It was nearly 60 years ago, Lewis wasn't ever in Chicago that I can remember reading about, and Sanders worked with CORE and Lewis for SNCC. None of those things would lead me to believe Lewis would have met him. And Sanders never claims to have met him.
Oh, well, in your mind, I'm probably another person "throwing Lewis under the bus." Whatever gets you through the night.
mcar
(42,334 posts)and his compatriots in Underbusland tea. That way I could hear all the great conversations! 
DarthDem
(5,255 posts)They may need to get a bigger one.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)John Poet
(2,510 posts)more than a few times.*
Perhaps we'll get to that point later in the year,
if bullshit like this keeps up.
*Figuratively speaking.
ismnotwasm
(41,989 posts)No worries
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)PonyUp
(1,680 posts)
Kurovski
(34,655 posts)Clumsy rhetoric at best, simpering disingenuous preciousness at worst.
If you are speaking of Cali's post, she's treating Mr. Lewis with greater respect than you are.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)for the both of you. Go Bernie!
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)He cannot possibly be expected to know of or remember everyone who was active in civil rights in the '60s. Jeez...
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I'm sure he's grateful for all of the concern over his every utterance. 
silenttigersong
(957 posts)INTERVIEWER: Your mentor, Herbert Marcuse once back in '58, as I recall, said that one of the things that would happen as blacks made gains in the civil rights movement was that there would be the creation of a black bourgeoisie and that's certainly been one of the things that's happened as we look back from the vantage point of 1997. How do you see the role of the black bourgeoisie in the continuing struggle?
DAVIS: Actually we've had a black bourgeoisie or the makings of a black bourgeoisie for many more decades.... if we look at one of our great leaders, W.E.B. Du Bois, he was associated with a very minuscule black bourgeoisie in the 19th century so this is not something that is substantively new although the numbers of black people who now count themselves among the black bourgeoisie certainly does make an enormous difference.
In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the US has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable. What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
INTERVIEWER: Isn't that inevitable though? Hasn't every immigrant group, as it becomes part of the American mainstream, left behind its roots in a certain way?
DAVIS: That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated. This is new. This is not the typical path toward freedom that immigrants have traditionally discovered in the US.
And I guess what I would say is that we can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation. But rather we have to look at the structural changes that have also accompanied the gains of the civil rights movement. We have to look at for example the increasing globalization of capital, the whole system of transitional capitalism now which has had an impact on black populations -- that has for example eradicated large numbers of jobs that black people traditionally have been able to count upon and created communities where the tax base is lost now as a result of corporations moving to the third world in order to discover cheap labor. I would suggest is that in the latter 1990s it is extremely important to look at the predicament of black people within the context of the globalization of capital.
INTERVIEWER: One of the things that struck me as I've gone back and revisited this history --is that Martin Luther King starts this movement for economic justice just before he's assassinated. The Black Panther party is just getting off the ground here in California and in a way there seems like there was a march towards merging these issues of class and race in the late 60s that somehow got derailed.
DAVIS: Yes, I think it's really important to acknowledge that Dr. King, precisely at the moment of his assassination, was re-conceptualizing the civil rights movement and moving toward a sort of coalitional relationship with the trade union movement. It's I think quite significant that he was in Memphis to participate in a demonstration by sanitation workers who had gone out on strike. Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.
INTERVIEWER: We also see an increasingly weaker labor movement.
DAVIS: Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital. So yeah, you're absolutely right, but I'm thinking about some developments say in the 80s when the anti-apartheid movement began to claim more support and strength within the US. Black trade unionists played a really important role in developing this US anti-apartheid movement. For example, right here in the Bay Area one of the first major activist moments was the refusal on the part of the longshoremen's union to unload ships that were coming in from South Africa and the ILWU then took the leadership here in the Bay Area, particularly as a result of the black caucus within the ILWU, they took the leadership in creating an anti-apartheid movement that spread to all of the campuses, UC Berkeley, Stanford.
INTERVIEWER: At least from my vantage point, back then it seemed we were attacking structures and institutions and after a certain point it began to feel like it wasn't possible. Our leaders were assassinated, one of the things I was reading today was -- 28 Panthers were killed by the police but 300 Black Panthers were killed by other Panthers just within -- internecine warfare. It just began to seem like we were in an impossible task given what we were facing. How do we reawaken that sense that one person can really make that difference again now? And kids these days are kind of going back to Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg as examples of people that stand for something.
DAVIS: It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems. I guess I would say first of all that we tend to go back to the 60s and we tend to see these struggles and these goals in a relatively static way. The fact is important gains were made and those gains are still visible today. For example, the number of African-American studies programs that are on college campuses today. Those institutional changes are inconceivable outside of that development within -- related to the Black Panther party and other organizations. Young people began to take those struggles onto the campuses
INTERVIEWER: The last line in the essay Skip Gates has in The Future of the Race is-- "only sometimes do I feel guilty that I was one of the lucky ones. Only sometimes do I ask myself why." I wonder whether you ever feel guilty for having been one of those who have survived?
DAVIS: Well, I think about it. But I don't know whether I feel guilty. I think that has to do with my awareness that in a sense we all have a certain measure of responsibility to those who have made it possible for us to take advantage of the opportunities. The door is opened only so far. If some of us can squeeze through the crack of that door, then we owe it to those who have made those demands that the door be opened to use the knowledge or the skills that we acquire not only for ourselves but in the service of the community as well. This is something that I guess I decided a long time ago.
INTERVIEWER: But still there were those who were arrested around the same time you are were still in prison? You got out -- you got off in some ways because you had become such a cause celebre that there were others who didn't have.
DAVIS: I mean that's true but I am actually addressing your question about guilt, and I'm trying to suggest that maybe there are other ways to deal with it than with guilt. So rather than feeling guilty is what I have done is to continue the work. As soon as I got out of jail, as soon as my trial was over, first of all, during the time I was in jail, there was an organization called the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, and I insisted that it be called National United Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners.
As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. And, what? in June it will have been 25 years since my trial was over. I'm still working for the freedom of political prisoners, Mumia Abu Jamal, the Puerto Rican political prisoners, such as Dinci Pargan, for example, Leonard Pelletier. I'm involved in the work around prison rights in general. I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement. Then I don't think it's necessary to feel guilty. Because I know that I'm still doing the work that is going to help more sisters and brothers to challenge the whole criminal justice system, and I'm trying to use whatever knowledge I was able to acquire to continue to do the work in our communities that will move us forward.
INTERVIEWER: One of the problems, as we came into the 70s is it seemed as though we were fighting institutions and structures that were so big that there just seemed to be nothing that one person could do about them... How do we recapture that sense of a kind of power of being bold enough to take on those structures again?
DAVIS: I don't know whether the movement crashed as a result of the overwhelming character of the institutions we set out to change. I think repression had a lot to do with the dismantling of the movement and also the winning of certain victories had something to do with the inability of the movement to take those victories as the launching point for new goals and developing new strategies.
But I do think it's extremely important to acknowledge the gains that were made by the civil rights movement, the black power movement. I don't think we do that enough.. Institutional transformations happened directly as a result of the movements that people, unnamed people, organized and gave their lives to.
INTERVIEWER: Such as?
DAVIS: I'm thinking about the desegregation of the south, for example, and the fact that some black women decided to boycott the bus system and this was actually done and eventually those laws were transformed or changed.
INTERVIEWER: The other thing that happened of course is that the struggle isn't so much taking place on college campuses any more, it's taking place in corporate board rooms or within the corporate structure and those of us who are there are both -- it's a weird thing happening. On one hand we're more reticent about taking on the racist things that we see happening within that environment, but the other thing that's happening is we're becoming more Afrocentric at the same time. It's almost like, we kind of feel like if we show up wearing our kente cloth that that's it, we've done our struggle. What is that about? Where does that come from?
DAVIS: I think it arises out of a tendency often to conflate cultural blackness with anti-racism. I think this is another case where there are lessons to be learned during the period of the 60s when organizations like the Black Panther Party were coming into being, there were other cultural nationalist organizations such as US Organization, such as the organization that Amiri Baraka developed and of course Amiri OK, there was the black arts movement which was extremely important, but there was also Baraka's political organization in Newark that took a cultural nationalist position that assumed that if we were able to connect with the culture of our African ancestors that somehow or another these vast problems surrounding us, racism in education, in the school, racism in the economy, in health care, etc would disappear. They were very interesting conflicts and debates between groups like the Black Panther party and the cultural nationalist groups in the 60s.
INTERVIEWER: What were those debates? What was the nature of that debate between the Black Panther and say a group like US?
DAVIS: The debate often focused on what young black people wanting to associate themselves with a movement for liberation should do, whether they should become active in campaigns against police violence, for example, or whether they should focus their energy on wearing African clothes and changing their name and developing rituals. One of the names members of the Black Panther Party used to call those who focused on Africa and African rituals was sort of pork chop nationalists. There were some of us who argued that yes, we need to develop a cultural consciousness of our connection with Africa particularly since racist structures had relied upon the sort of cultural genocide going back to the period of slavery so that many of us were arguing that we could affirm our connection with our African ancestors in political ways as well, following for example Dr. Du Bois' vision of pan-Africanism which was an anti-imperialist notion of pan-Africanism rather than the pan-Africanism that projected a very idealized, romantic image of Africa, a fictional notion of Africa and assumed that all we needed to do was to become African, so to speak, rather than become involved in organized anti-imperialist struggles. So I think that the debate around pan-Africanism at the beginning, in the aftermath of world war I, for example, that Dr. Du Bois participated in, took on a different character but recapitulated some of the very same kinds of concepts and issues in the 1960s. [Snip]
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)The faux drama is getting silly and it's not going to boost Hillary's plunging numbers. Instead, they will drop further for this fake outrage.
Empowerer
(3,900 posts)Thanks for the kick.
I think many of us should do the same. Back out of these baiting "discussions'.
Empowerer
(3,900 posts)
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)Room for one more? 
Armstead
(47,803 posts)That was a snarky bit of dirty politics he did, and undercut his reputation.
That deserves a little bit of time under the bus.
Gothmog
(145,321 posts)lunamagica
(9,967 posts)DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)And he was playing politics today. No one can sincerely claim otherwise.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)I have too much respect for the man to use him or abuse him.
I have yet to see a post condemning the Right Honorable Mr. Lewis, for his answer to the question presented. No one has said "damn John Lewis". No one has impinged his character.
I have seen posts asking if anyone knew of a possible motivation for his answer, presented as it has been as flame bait.
I haven't read everything posted here.
Share if you have examples.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)Fact!
AOR
(692 posts)Hekate
(90,714 posts)....so we can all fit beneath it. Put out the word to bring some camp chairs, and we'll all be comfy.
Fearless
(18,421 posts)Facts about what he claimed be dammed we just like him because!11!??11!!!
Response to Empowerer (Original post)
Post removed
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)A combination of "straw man" and "martyr complex".
