New black activist generation: Yes, the system is rigged

… just not in the way Donald Trump claims:

During his senior year, Donald Abram put a lot of his energy into the Black Lives Matter protests that roiled the campus at Pomona College in California last fall.

It was in many ways a political coming-of-age for Mr. Abram, who grew up in the South Side of Chicago, raised by his churchgoing mother and grandmother. He joined a host of fellow students last spring and fall, participating in “die-ins,” marching on campus, and giving voice to grievances that he and other Black Lives Matter protesters were loudly proclaiming to both school administrators and the country as a whole.

Now a divinity student at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., however, Abram has not been nearly as politically active, even during one of the most raucous and polarizing elections in modern U.S. history. Part of the reason is the pressure and time constraints of graduate school, he says. And though he sees the outcomes of the elections on Nov. 8 as incredibly important, he says supporting a political party does not have to be his primary focus as a politically-engaged citizen.

“We’ve tried to use the political channels through liberal Democrats, who control most of urban cities, but we haven’t really been heard,” Abram says. “Therefore we’ve had to use extra-political means to call the attention of liberal Democrats.”

Like others involved in Black Lives Matter, he cites one of the recent Wikileaks emails in which a Democratic congressional staffer lists a behind-the-scenes set of “best practices” to deal with BLM activists. These encouraged Democratic representatives to “lead from behind,” have “limited” group meetings, and “don’t offer support for concrete policy positions.”

Indeed, the ethos of the Black Lives Matter movement is in many ways part of a larger culture of grievance that is reshaping American politics.

The whole article is well worth your time.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.