No, Bernie Sanders Did Not “Let” Marissa and Mara Have the Mic – They Took It

When I saw this meme comparing how Senator Bernie Sanders “treated” Black Lives Matter protestors in Seattle last year versus how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did, I scoffed, rolled my eyes, and hated the internet.

The meme suggests that Senator Sanders welcomed the disruption orchestrated by Marissa Johnson, Mara Willaford, and fellow members of the Black Lives Matter Seattle chapter, while frontrunner Hillary Clinton was dismissive, abrupt, and patronizing.

The origins of the meme are unknown, but the message is clear. Bernie Sanders is the progressive white savior sympathetic to radical Black voices, and is thus deserving of the powerful Black vote. Hillary Clinton is a racist out-of-touch politico who is not genuinely concerned about Black issues.

It’s true that Hillary Clinton is an anti-Black political opportunist. She was complicit in implementing mass incarceration and welfare “reform”; two structural roadblocks that has done irreparable damage to the Black American populace.

But the meme is disingenuous and revisionist as fuck. According to Marissa and Mara, Senator Sanders and his handlers physically tried to confront the the two women during the disruption. The mostly-white crowd was hostile and threw garbage at the organizers. On social media, Bernie’s supporters violently evoked misogynoir to shame and harm these Black women. The Sanders campaign offered a victim-blaming, lackluster press release, and used their newly-hired Black press secretary to silence Black voices. Mara and Marissa were smeared, called bitches, whores, and cunts, and shouldered death threats.

Bernie Sanders was not the stoic who humbly relinquished his white privilege in the hopes of a building a racially equitable society. He was dismissive, abrupt, and patronizing.

In the annals of social media, Bernie STANders — white and Black alike — are trying (sometimes, desperately) to tailor the senator’s image in a way that appeals beyond his rabid white supporters. In this primary election, the Black vote will decide who the next Democratic presidential contender will be, and Hillary’s monumental margins of Black support is a dreary reality that Bernie has, until recently, failed to successfully overcome. His vicious loss in the South Carolina primary, and subsequent upset victory in Michigan underscores this point. (Note: I know that some STANders believe any critique against him is an immediate endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Know that I am equally — if not more so — critical of Hillary, so don’t come up in my mentions with your mistruths and assumptions.)

Some of his supporters are smart enough to recognize that antagonizing Black people who are critical of the Vermont lawmaker is not politically sound. Alienating a significant voting bloc does little to curb the momentum of a political opportunist who has — for decades — inexplicably solidified not only support, but loyalty, from the Black community, particularly the Black political class.

Senator Sanders, himself an experienced politico who has occupied public office since 1981, is further integrating these talking points into his official campaign. Killer Mike, one of Bernie’s earliest high-profile mouthpieces with deep and genuine ties to the Black community, has routinely stumped for the Senator. I imagine that the Atlanta-born raptivist’s inclusion in the campaign is a strategic one — he is able to reach Black millennial voters, an untapped demographic that can energize the electorate in much the same ways we did for President Obama.

In an impassioned delivery, Killer Mike echoed the sentiments of the revisionist meme. He did so with muster and resolve, his voice rising to a crescendo to rouse the crowd. But my girl Marissa wasn’t having it. Watch this interview she did with This Week in Blackness, where she slayed to bits the whitewashing of her truth, narrative, and reality.

Header image via.