Democracy in America | Civil rights 2.0

Black Lives Matter broadens its scope

More than 60 organisations associated with the movement have released a new manifesto

By S.M. | NEW YORK

DONALD TRUMP’s support among African Americans hovers in the single digits, with recent polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania putting it at 0%. On the first night of the Republican convention, several black men took to the stage to try to improve Mr Trump’s standing among African Americans. One speaker, David Clarke, a sheriff from Wisconsin, cited Martin Luther King, lamented the “collapse of the social order” and tweaked a popular rallying cry for racial justice to stand up for fallen police officers. “Blue lives matter in America”, he declared to a roaring crowd.

The Democratic convention addressed the roiling issue of the victims and perpetrators of police shootings, with a moment of silence for police who died in the Baton Rouge and Dallas attacks and several mentions of the phrase “black lives matter”. In her acceptance speech, Hillary Clinton did not use those words, exactly, but did ask her supporters to put themselves “in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable”. Lest she be accused of devaluing law-enforcement officers’ lives, she then added: “Let's put ourselves in the shoes of police officers, kissing their kids and spouses goodbye every day and heading off to do a dangerous and necessary job. We will reform our criminal justice system from end-to-end, and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”

One of the many gulfs between the presidential candidates, then, is a race gap. But in contrast to the political climate 40 years ago, the differences have been less over policy proposals and more about America’s culture of racism and how to talk about it. In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement aimed to dismantle racial segregation and legally entrenched forms of racial inequality. It had many successes, including the integration of public schools and facilities and laws barring discrimination in employment, housing and voting. But, as today’s activists point out, this progress on the legal front did not do enough to change the status of black people in America.

In 2013, Black Lives Matter had its start as #BlackLivesMatter, a hashtag tapped out by Patrice Cullors in response to a Facebook post from Alicia Garza. Ms Garza was reflecting on the contours of American racism following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, in Sanford, Florida. Together with mutual friend and fellow activist Opal Tometi, Ms Garza and Ms Cullours launched Black Lives Matter as an online campaign. The movement, and the motto, became a focal point for protests following a string of police shootings of black men beginning with the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Three years later, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has developed into a decentralised but widespread movement whose online incarnation attempts to “build connections between Black people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement”. Its aims have also been brought together in a coalition of 50-plus organisations committed to pushing political leaders to make specific changes in the name of racial justice. As of August 1st, BLM’s message has broadened significantly. In addition to drawing attention to police brutality and mass incarceration of black people, the movement is diving back into the realm of policy to urge change on the economic front.

The six-point platform, released by the coalition, offers a range of prescriptions, from the familiar (strengthening the teaching of colonialism and slavery in public-school curricula; enhancing voting rights; ending the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); banning discrimination based on criminal history; deeper investments in education; an end to solitary confinement) to the fathomable (ending capital punishment and cash bail; breaking up large banks by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act) to the radical (lifetime free education and a “guaranteed minimum livable income” for black people). The scope and audacity of the platform suggests that Black Lives Matter intends to assert itself—both during the presidential campaign and after the election—as a mature, more mainstream movement that nevertheless retains its core as a vehicle for improving the lives of black Americans.

Mr Trump’s disdain of the TPP matches BLM’s, but that’s about the only bit of overlap between this new civil rights movement’s demands and his agenda. There is clearly more of an affinity with the Democratic platform, especially given the mark Bernie Sanders made on his party’s advocacy of free public university for families earning under $125k and a new public option under Obamacare. But Mrs Clinton has not been quick to comment on BLM’s demands, no doubt because the proposals are so wide-ranging and, in some cases, probably unconstitutional. Appearing to endorse the most racially divisive items on the BLM agenda would undermine her chances of cutting into Mr Trump’s gigantic lead among white men without a college degree.

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