#Progressive BLM leaders hit Democrats for ‘performative’ 2020 convention

Last week’s Democratic National Convention featured countless references to Black Lives Matter, but some leaders in the movement are expressing concern that Democrats could simply be paying lip service.

Speaking to Politico, a group of BLM leaders opened up about their concerns, as well as what they appreciated from the Democratic Party, after last week’s virtual convention.

Some, like Patrisse Cullors, who helped found the movement in 2013 after Trayvon Martin’s killing, felt wholly dissatisfied with the Democrats’ convention showing.

“It’s been unfortunate to not see the Democratic Party fully align themselves with the powerful work this movement has been doing,” Cullors, who supports defunding the police, told the outlet.

Alicia Garza, another BLM co-founder and principal at the Black Futures Lab, took a wait-and-see approach when assessing the Democratic Party’s recent effort to respond to the movement.

“It took seven years for Democrats to articulate that ‘black lives matter.’ Now, the country is watching to see if and how they will close the gap between symbolism and substance,” she said.

Monifa Bandele, a leader in the Movement for Black Lives coalition, praised the Democratic National Committee for including Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man killed by New York police in 2014, in the festivities.

Still, she warned, party leadership needs to do more than simply let Carr speak.

“Don’t just give [Carr] the microphone, make sure that what she says on the microphone translates to a written commitment by the party. You can have a lot of talking heads at a convention saying a lot of great things, but unless you put it down on paper that these are the issues that we commit to addressing, moving forward with the new administration, then it’s performative,” Bandele said.

For her part, Carr acknowledged that racism had certainly received more attention than at previous Democratic conventions, but was not fully satisfied with what she had seen.

“There’s a lot of things that I would like to sit down and talk to [Democratic presidential nominee Joe] Biden and his team about. A lot of times things are addressed, but then that’s where it’s left,” she told the outlet.

Like Cullors, Garza and Bandele support defunding the police, a position that puts them at odds with both Biden and the overall party platform.

Garza and other BLM leaders expressed concern to Politico over the Democrats’ decision to reject language aimed at curbing police misconduct, as well as the Biden campaign’s calls to “rein in” qualified immunity — the doctrine that shields law enforcement officers from personal liability.

The campaign’s particular language choice left many of the activists confused about what exactly they were proposing.

“2020 demands more. Reining it in, I don’t even know what that means,” Bandele said.

Biden campaign surrogate Symone Sanders defended the team’s position on qualified immunity in an interview with Politico, calling the former vice president’s position on the subject “intentional and thoughtful.”

Sanders said Biden had some differing views from the Justice in Policing Act, which was passed by House Democrats in the wake of the death of George Floyd, but supported some parts of the bill.

“There are a number of things in that bill that he absolutely supports wholesale, like a ban on chokeholds, for example. But it’s true that the House bill does not exactly mirror our policy and the vice president’s perspective. But what is also true is this — that we think criminal justice reform and police reform should be a bipartisan issue,” she said.

Sanders went on to say that Biden believes “qualified immunity as it stands today for police officers is too expansive,” and that chokeholds are among “a range of activities that should not be covered.”

Biden does not support defunding the police. In fact, the Democratic presidential nominee has openly said he supports more funding for police departments despite it going against the wishes of racial justice protesters.

Speaking to donors at a fundraiser earlier this month, the former vice president said, “I don’t want to defund police.”

“I want to get police more money in order to deal with the things they badly need, from making sure they have access to community policing, that they have also in the departments social workers, psychologists, people who in fact can handle those God-awful problems that a cop has to have four degrees to handle,” he told the virtual crowd of donors.

The 2020 presidential hopeful has also pledged to create a national police oversight commission within his first 100 days in office.

BLM leaders hoping Biden will change his position shouldn’t hold their breath, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told Politico.

“I don’t expect him to suddenly sound like a member of ‘The Squad,’” he told the outlet. “I expect him to build coalitions, listen, and get progressive change done. But if someone’s expecting him to turn into Bernie Sanders, that’s not going to happen.”

Progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voiced grievances with how the DNC was conducted and what audiences the party tried to reach.

“Would I have done things differently? Of course. But as a young progressive Latina I know I was not the target audience for this convention. The target audience for this convention was white moderates who aren’t sure who they’re voting for in November,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote in a series of Instagram stories Friday evening.

“Do I agree with centering the programming on that audience? Not necessarily. I think we could have done more to rally turnout enthusiasm from our party’s base. Muslims has ZERO representation which is just utterly crazy to me — we need the turnout Ilhan [Omar] and Rashida [Tlaib] delivered in their primaries,” she continued.

Asked by The New Yorker about Biden’s outreach toward the left wing of the Democratic Party, former President Barack Obama argued that there wasn’t much between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in terms of policy differences.

“If you look at Joe Biden’s goals and Bernie Sanders’ goals, they’re not that different, from a 40,000-foot level.

“They both want to make sure everybody has health care. They want to make sure everybody can get a job that pays a living wage. They want to make sure every child gets a good education,” Obama said.

“A lot of times, the issue has to do with ‘How do we go about that, and what are the coalitions we need?’” he continued. “What I think the moment has done is to change some of those calculations, not because necessarily Joe’s changed but because circumstances have changed.”