When I was a flying-under-the-radar queer teen, Act Up was going around everywhere disrupting, raising hell, pissing people off and crashing political rallies in their near-desperate effort to get action on the AIDS epidemic that was shaping up into a mass extinction of gay males. Act Up was rude and overwrought and full of itself and successfully fulfilled every negative stereotype of what an hysterical queen looked like in person. Oh, and Act Up didn't give even one micro-fuck about anyone's preferred candidate, or the "big picture." They really made me ashamed to be queer. And they were absolutely right to do what they did. Because they got results.
#BlackLivesMatter is making it clear that they're going to be disruptive any time and way they feel like it. They have a specific and worthy agenda. Because (far as I can see, correct me if I'm wrong) they don't seem to have hard-and-fast leadership establishing guidelines and making official, consistent position statements to the press, individual groups may get especially creative about their messaging. Like Act Up, #BLM aims to misbehave. Who can blame them?
Campaigns (and their followers) need to stop acting surprised and butthurt. Activists are always obnoxious and persistent. Remember?
If political event organizers don't want their stage/gate crashed and the mic co-opted, they need to give the likely (and worthy) "crashers" their own place on the agenda, their own presence on the stage, and their own time at the mic. Then organizers need to get really good security to defend the stage and the mic, so it won't be a "free-for-all at the mic" all day long for Code Pink and Greenpeace and ClimateAction and any other activist cavalcade fighting to address the many life-and-death emergencies happening in the world today. Finally, event organizers should advise the crowd about their expectations, and security's willingness to enforce them, before the event and between every speaker.
We can only assume that the event organizers in Seattle wanted the stage crashed and the mic co-opted in exactly the way it was today. That served someone's purpose beyond #BLM's. So if you want to blame somebody, blame the organizers. They were really the only ones who had the power to stop it. Why they did not is anyone's guess, but I'd be sure to ask them if you're curious.
You might also blame Sanders' campaign, for failing to to ask any rally or event organizer if they'd made a place for #BLM on the stage in their own slot, and if not, why not? You might blame Sanders' campaign staff for failing to ask what kind of security the event organizers promised re: access to the stage. (Unless said staff misled Sanders' people about security). Seriously. This isn't just about #BLM. It's about safety. Obama had security of his own near this point in his candidacy. And something tells me NO ONE around Obama--personal security or event staff-- would have tolerated a group repeatedly taking over the the stage and co-opting the mic--for ANY reason. Know how I know that? Because it never happened.
Meantime, as a Bernie supporter, I commend Bernie for speaking out against systemic racism. I urge him to develop a point-by-point policy plan for combating, it, and have the plan featured on giant banners and posters at every event.
But hey, disruptors disrupt. It's what they do. Don't blame them. Just expect them and plan accordingly. NN was an understandable surprise. Beyond that.. no excuses from the folks who should have seen this coming a mile away.