2020 March on Washington

[Buddy2]

Thanks to C-SPAN, the March was broadcast live. How fitting the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I had a dream" speech took place  only hours after the Trump event at the White House.. in contrast, the March provided a very affirmative view of  Black Lives Matter.

 

Jacob Blake's dad was on the first guest. He brilliantly set the tone of anger and hope. (later yesterday his son's leg was no longer shakeled  to his hospital bed in Wisconsin.).  Reverend Al gathered family members of other Black heros who are no longer with us. So many!

 

I had a summer factory job in 1963 the year of King March. I don't remember watching the news that day and was surprised the six leaders of that March met President Kennedy that evening.

 

Wonderful day!

 

[AdamSmith]

Think with you & many others that the times they are a-changing.

[Buddy2]

President Trump has commented on the shooting of Jacob Blake:

 

I will be looking at it very seriously. I didn't like the sight of it.

 

On a related issue, Trump criticized the NBA for "very low ratings."

[stevenkesslar]

 

Another interesting point/counterpoint about race in America in 2020.  You can have a very lively and diverse debate on these matters if all you do is listen to Black voices.  That right there is good news for an increasingly multi-racial America.

As a Democrat, I'm glad that some Blacks are voting for President Toxic.  First, Blacks of course have every right to be a conservative, as do I to be a liberal.  Second, as a lifelong Democrat it's easy to see the virtue of Black Republicans.  President Toxic is President because of Blacks who did or more likely did not vote in a handful of cities.  There is no question that he has tried to do some things that were politically calculated to win Black votes.  Or to win White votes from moderates who don't want to feel like they're on Team Racism. 

He's clearly playing for Black male votes.  That's why the Black speakers profiled this past week were almost all men, I think.  All of that disproves the insulting thesis that somehow most Blacks are so stupid that they mindlessly allow themselves to remain shackled on the Democratic plantation. 

Speaking of mindless, since I posted Brewer I feel like I have to fact check him.  BLM is not calling for the destruction of the nuclear family.  Nor are they Marxist, or socialist, or anti-Semitic, as Politifact says here.  This is another case of a Republican conservative, in this case a Black one, throwing around inflammatory tropes.  We know from the polls most Blacks disagree with him.  He's entitled to his opinion.

I won't post Herschel Walker's speech at the RNC, but it helped me to understand where Black support for President Toxic is coming from.  Both men are from the South.  Both said they know racism when they see it.  Brewer referenced the KKK.  So if you define racism as lynching or things like that, Trump's not for that, of course. 

I think this is also where most White Republicans are coming from, based on years of conversations.  I'm not KKK.  I don't own slaves.  I think John Lewis was a good man.  I may not agree with anything he says about how Republicans target, oppress, or suppress Black voters.  But that doesn't make me a racist.  Most of the ones I know who think this way are old White men.  And they will die feeling this way, I think.

It's also worth noting that Brewer and Walker are former professional athletes who seem to have done almost everything right.  Thanks to the 1950's and 1960's, we now live in a country where if you are those men, or Barack Obama or Michael Steele, you can be a Black man AND an extremely powerful Democrat or Republican.  The only problem is that we're not all perfect, and we don't always do everything right.  

Enter Charlemagne.  He's actually a perfect example of what Brewer is talking about.  A Black man who went to jail for nonviolent crimes - in this case drug possession.  Charlemagne is hardly a fan of Biden and his past votes on criminal justice.  But there's no question that he'll be voting for Biden and Harris.  

I can see how this "big tent" discussion is sustainable for decades on the Democratic side.  Biden can say, correctly, that the majority of the Black Caucus, including Rep. Clyburn, voted for those criminal justice bills in the 90's when they were passed.  Black leaders calling for them and voting for them is WHY they passed when a Democrat was President.  The huge spike in Black incarceration based on Reagan/Bush laws was a done deal by the time Clinton was elected. 

Harris and Charlemagne seem to have warmer feelings for each other.  It was clear from the interview I watched that Harris is a way better cook than Charlemagne.  So whether it's about being in jail or being in the kitchen, they can all be in the tent together and get along fine for a long time.

I'll be interested to see what happens on the GOP side.  It would be good for America, and Blacks, if there was enough of a conservative Black Republican base that the party felt they had to reach out and listen to them.  Like they obviously did when they made Michael Steele their Chairman. 

It's not clear how they do that moving forward.  Steele is no longer on the team.  And the McCloskeys and the Brewers just have very, very different messages.  Do you invite Blacks to speak at your convention, or wave guns at them when they peacefully march past your home?  I wouldn't mind being in a tent with Brewer.  Even as a White man, I just can't see how it would be pleasant to be in a tent with the McCloskeys.

If the smartest Never Trumper Republicans who've already left the "big tent" are right, that tent is going to get smaller and Whiter after President Toxic.  Some of them are guessing that Donald Trump will remain around as a sort of cult leader and spearhead of the rebellion.  That would explain why the ones who might want to run for President in 2024, like Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo, have been such excellent shills for Team Toxic. 

It also reinforces my fear that in terms of future Republican interest in bipartisanship and compromise, it's going to go from bad to worse.   A diminishing old White male tent that reinforces the narrative of losing a cultural crusade and losing America will not be a welcoming home for most Blacks, I suspect.  Or for compromise.  We'll see.  Mitt Romney clearly has some other ideas.  As does John Kasich.

It may be a small semantic thing, but it's worth noting that BLM said they want to "disrupt" the nuclear family, as in "it wants people to support one another broadly beyond the nuclear family" according to Poliifact.  "Disrupt" is boilerplate organizing/progressive change/civil rights language to me.  You can't say you admire John Lewis without saying he was all about causing "good trouble".  The fact that Brewer and most Republicans hear this as "destruction" is a perfect metaphor for the difference between Republicans and Democrats today. 

I'm not optimistic that there's much room to unify with people who seem to genuinely believe that attempts to peacefully and intelligently disrupt in the face of racial and economic injustice - mostly by marching and voting -  is the same thing as wanting to destroy America.

So my take is that MLK, and all the John Lewises of America who stood up and gotten beaten down, got their wish.  The truth is marching on.  Even if this is a season of nonstop lies and distortions.  We are still heading up the mountaintop.  Even if in 2020 we are in the "one step back" phase of our progress as a nation.

Edited August 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

I attend these every 57 years and went down on my bike yesterday. The whole area was screened off for security and the lines to get into the mall around the Reflecting Pool were two or three blocks long (the bike couldn't have gone in anyway). I did just happen to see Al Sharpton come up with with Breanna Taylor's mother  (and whole family?) . The group was wearing fluorescent blue and green t-shirts. Seeing Ms.Taylor was touching. You can tell since Brianna's murder she's been in shock. No one wants their 15 minutes of fame to be as the parent of a murdered child. 

The comparisons to when I was a kid in '63 are that the crowd then was 90% Black, while this year 90% of the crowd outside the steps were white. I remember Marian Anderson singing and the charisma of MLK from the 1963 one. The crowd then (as in 60's marches here) was closer to half a million. Probably because of DC's travel ban, the crowd this year was not as massive (while still large). 1963 was more labor union speakers (it was for Jobs and Justice) while 2020 was more police killings.

The time I "missed" was 1939 when Marian Anderson brought 75,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial for the 1st real civil rights rally. Why she was so important in 1963. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/marian-anderson-of-thee-we-sing/

video:

 

 

[Buddy2]

This August sports teams  have stepped up refusing to play especially in the NBA, but also Major League Baseball (including leadership from new, up and coming stars) and the National Hockey League.

 

Earlier today Jacob Blake, Senior told Rev Al on television how much the March in Washington and the rally today in Kenosha meant to him  and his family.

His son is still heavily sedated

[TotallyOz]

49 minutes ago, Buddy2 said:

This August sports teams  have stepped up refusing to play especially in the NBA, but also Major League Baseball (including leadership from new, up and coming stars) and the National Hockey League.

Yes, I have found this refreshingly surprising especially from the upper leadership.

[Buddy2]

15 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

Yes, I have found this refreshingly surprising especially from the upper leadership.

Absolutely true of the NBA. Less certain about major league baseball where fewer players are Black.. Still, it a major achievement in this country.