That video above the fold was shot by someone sitting directly across the table right at the center in front of the stage at Saturday's Netroots Nation Townhall.
There have been countless articles, emails, facebook posts, tweets and diaries with the what. I've mostly been silent til now because I was processing what I experienced and I might have stayed silent but
1. that's not really me
2. I've seen things people have said that I feel the need to respond to
3. most importantly, I simply have to publicly share some of what I've been thinking in order to be able to refocus on work, life and taking what I experienced and using it to shape my work going forward
So bear with me here...it's gonna be a Spedwybabs diary- a little rambly, maybe long but minus the shoes and cats cause this moment is bigger than that.
So there I was sitting with 10 of my fellow NN attendees, eagerly waiting for Jose Antonio Vargas and the candidates take the stage.
As O'Malley offered his opening remarks I heard people around me starting to get excited about some of the things he was advocating for and I found myself getting swept up as well.
Then it happened. From the back of the room all we could hear were the chants from the crowd of people marching up the aisle. At my table, we all looked at each other wondering what the heck was happening and then suddenly we were dead center of it.
Angry, emotional African American women sharing their truth and the media trying to shoot video/take pictures. I speak for no one but myself when I say I consciously chose to not stand...not because I didn't see myself as supporting them, but because of the location I was in I found myself thinking "who am I a white woman to insert myself into the videos and pictures being taken...this isn't my truth being shared so I sat.
I watched as Gov. O'Malley stood and listened to what the protesters were saying. I watched as an African American woman stood behind a friend of mine across the table, shooting video with her cell phone as tears slid down her face. I hugged the woman of color sitting next to me to try to tell her that she wasn't alone and that while her truth, their truth, isn't my own experience that she wasn't alone and I was there for her.
And I watched as some of the NN Board and Staff struggled with what was the right way to handle the situation. It's not for me to say if it was handled right or not...all I can speak to in this diary is what I saw but more importantly what I felt and what I learned.
So I watched all of this and as it continued on my surprise turned to intense sadness that it had come to this- that these women felt so ignored by the world that they felt that they had to shut down a Presidential Candidate Forum at a conference built around Progressive activism.
Then #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName turned to #SayMyName and that's when I, for the first time, truly felt the anger they must feel. The fear, the agony, the frustration. So again I made the decision to just sit and listen to their truth because I knew that as Progressive as I consider myself to be I was about to get schooled in how much more I could learn and how much more I could do.
When Gov. O'Malley uttered the words he has now owned and apologized for (more on that in a minute), I gasped along with everyone else...wondering if I had heard right.
Then Senator Sanders took the stage. And the chanting continued, and instead of respectfully listening or, even acknowleding their concerns, he held out his hand as if to say, in my reading of it, to the protesters "shhh I'm talking now"
At that moment the anger flared and I realized that I couldn't vote for this amazing person who I agree with on so many of the issues. To me, he was signaling that their pain was all well and good but what he had to say was more important. Even as I type this I feel myself tensing up and the anger resurfacing.
He then continued to give his stump speech...all the while all around me the chanting continued. Finally, he seemed to realize that he wasn't being heard so he left the stage.
After the townhall, I attended a small gathering I'd been invited to along with several other people with Gov. O'Malley. They started off by telling us it was an on the record discussion so I'm not sharing anything that I was told or asked not to. After we'd gone around the room and introduced ourselves, it didn't take long for Gov. O'Malley to address the words he had uttered "Black lives matter White lives matter All lives matter"...the line that made us all gasp. What impressed me here was that he owned the statement, apologized for it and explained that he'd used that line at a gathering shortly after the massacre in Charleston and at that time it had garnered a standing ovation. He then went on to say that it was on him that he hadn't kept up with language being used in such discussions and apologized again.
I didn't get to see his interview with TWIB but do know that he apologized there as well. And then he continued to talk with people at the conference, one on one, small groups..he was present and he was listening. And where was the Senator? Well he wasn't at the meeting with the AZ Democratic Party he was scheduled to attend. He wasn't in the hallways talking to and listening to people.
I'm told over 11,000 people were at the Sanders rally Sat night and to have that many people show up in the heart of Arpaio country is heartening. I'm also told that at that rally he said a few lines that addressed what the protesters had been asking him to address. But for me that was 8 hours too late. In the moment he failed. In the moment instead of even just listening he instead tried to shut them down.
Since then there's been no hiding from everyone's opinions on what happened...social media, email lists, even here on DKos...but for me I'm left with just one thing I want to do and need to do:
Friends who are people of color...please please tell me what I as a white woman who doesn't live your truth can do. Tell me how I can better amplify your message, better show my support and better change the world so that in the future you don't go to bed at night wondering if your family and friends are going to get pulled over for a small traffic infraction and never come home again.
In the names of:
Sandra Bland
Michael Brown
Rekia Boyd
Kindra Chapman
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.
John Crawford III
Jordan Davis
Ezell Ford
Freddie Gray
Eric Garner
Oscar Grant III
Akai Gurley
Dontre Hamilton
Cynthia Hurd
Susie Jackson
Aiyana Jones
Ethel Lance
Trayvon Martin
Renisha McBride
Depayne Middleton-Doctor
Clementa Pinckney
Tamir Rice
Tony Robinson
Timothy Russell
Tywanza Sanders
Walter Scott
Daniel Simmons, Sr.
Myra Thompson
Cameron Tillman
Malissa Williams
and so many others that I don't know their names...please tell me how I can be a better ally.
Thank you.