The Netroots Nation conference is taking place in Phoenix, Ariz. Anna Galland, the executive director of MoveOn.org Civic Action, said the responses showed that all Democratic candidates have work to do to understand the black lives movement. “All lives matter”, O’Malley told the Netroots Nation convention audience, as some heckled and booed him.
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“It’s not like we like shutting s**t down, but we have to”, Black Lives Matter founder Patriss Cullors said.
He had just delivered what should have been applause lines at such a conference – closing for-profit prisons and ending wealth inequality – when about 30 protesters streamed into the Phoenix Convention Center’s main hall and began shouting questions.
After much chanting – and pleas from event organizers to give O’Malley a chance to respond to their questions – the former Maryland governor began to speak about criminal justice reform, promising a detailed policy proposal soon and saying he supported forcing police districts to report brutality complaints.
“I think all of us as Americans have a responsibility to recognize the pain and the grief throughout our country from all of the lives that have been lost to violence, whether that’s violence at the hands at the police or whether that’s violence at the hands of civilians”, O’Malley said, before being interrupted again. A protester was invited on stage.
Judith Butler, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, recently explained why some find it offensive to respond to the “Black Lives Matter” movement with the “all lives matter”.
Then, after the 15-minute interruption and toward the end of his time onstage, O’Malley said, “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter”. He repeated the line.
He left the stage shortly thereafter. “That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect”.
“Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed”, Sanders said. Vargas later tweeted later that he would have liked to continue the conversation, but that he wouldn’t silence the protesters voices to do so. The group grew from the fatal shooting of a black, unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb. “That was by design”.
The near-pandemonium probably had Hillary Clinton’s aides glad that they declined to send the Democratic frontrunner to Phoenix. Clinton skipped this year’s event. “Netroots Nation stands in solidarity with all people seeking human rights”. “And we’re bringing it to the presidential candidates”. “Although we wish the candidates had more time to respond to the issues, what happened today is reflective of an urgent moment that America is facing today”, the group said in a statement.
Yates, the protest organizer, was unconvinced. Sanders has risen in polls in recent months and sought to broaden his appeal to minorities and a more diverse section of the Democratic electorate, addressing immigration and criminal justice. No other topics of discussion seem to be acceptable this year, and the high profile speakers got an earful if they strayed from that script or dared say something more general about the needs of the entire population of the nation.
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“No more skirting around the issues”, Cullor said.
