Hillary Clinton must be smiling somewhere this weekend — perhaps in the backseat of her luxurious black Chevy Express Explorer Limited SE conversion van — upon hearing the news that ultra-left-wing activists shouted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley off stage at this year’s Netroots Nation convention for saying “all lives matter.”
Protesters from the #BlackLivesMatter movement shouted down Sanders and O’Malley separately as they participated in discussions moderated by journalist and illegal alien Jose Antonio Vargas at the Phoenix, Ariz. convention.
The two upstart candidates made the mistake of declaring that the life of every human being is important regardless of skin color. Consequently, both were ultimately unable to continue their remarks. (RELATED: Sanders And O’Malley Shouted Off Stage At Progressive Conference)
Last month, candidate Clinton also faced criticism for suggesting that “all lives matter.”
Clinton’s assertion that every human being is significant cameduring a civil rights discussion at Christ the King United Church of Christ, a predominantly black church in Florissant, Mo. — roughly one suburb over from Ferguson, where a white police officer shot and killed black teenager Michael Brown last year.
The Democratic frontrunner uttered the three hair-raising words as she said that everyone needs a “chance and a champion,” explained The New York Times in a contemporaneous account. Clinton was explaining that her own mother worked as a housekeeper as a teenager because Clinton’s grandparents had abandoned her.
“Kindness along the way from someone who believed she mattered” gave her mother hope in her darkest hours, Clinton said. “All lives matter.”
In response to Clinton’s claim that “all lives matter” last month, some black people took to Twitter to swear she had lost their votes.
For example:
@Carnegro @yoauntielikeit @fmason3 she. ain't. getting. my. damn. vote. ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuucccccckkk. that. shit
— CeVi (@NrdLovnNetta) June 23, 2015
“That blew a lot of support that she may have been able to engender here,” Renita Lamkin, a St. Louis-area pastor, told National Public Radio.
Back in January, Judith Butler, a University of California, Berkeley literature professor who specializes in gender theory, criticized the declaration that human dignity is somehow universal in the Times op-ed section.
“When some people rejoin with ‘All Lives Matter’ they misunderstand the problem, but not because their message is untrue,” the white, comfortably-tenured Berkeley professor wrote. “It is true that all lives matter, but it is equally true that not all lives are understood to matter which is precisely why it is most important to name the lives that have not mattered, and are struggling to matter in the way they deserve.”
At this weekend’s Netroots Nation convention, protesters interrupted O’Malley and then, after pleas from the stage and event organizers, the protesters deigned to allow the Democrat to continue.
“I know, I know…Let me talk a little bit…Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter,” O’Malley said.
The chants and boos got louder and the candidate left the stage.
Next came self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, who attempted to make opening remarks on the subject of income inequality.
The same protesters shouted Sanders down.
He replied: “Black lives of course matter. But I have spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and if you don’t want me to be here, that’s okay. I will answer your question but I’d like to speak for a couple of minutes, I was told…”
Never able to speak for any chunk of time, Sanders soon left the stage long before his discussion was scheduled to end.
Clinton, who appeared at the Netroots conference the last time she ran for president in 2007, skipped this year’s event.
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