Bernie delegates: No boos Tuesday night at the Democratic convention
PHILADELPHIA — Hoping to avoid another round of stories about Bernie Sanders backers booing speakers at the Democratic National Convention on a night whose program will be heavily focused on criminal justice reform issues, the Sanders delegates from New York made a pact among themselves on Tuesday morning: no booing tonight.
“We’re not going to boo, that’s all … that we agreed on,” said Chuck Hess, 31, an IT specialist from Buffalo sporting a sky blue Bernie T-shirt. “We had a meeting, and everybody is onboard.”
In addition to an address by former President Bill Clinton, the Mothers of the Movement — as the mothers of African-Americans killed during encounters with police are called — will speak from the podium in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
“The theme of today is the victims of police violence. We don’t want to take anything away from that,” chimed in Poornima Subramanian, 24, a student at University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy who wore a white baseball cap with a dove and the words “Bernie Peace” on it. “We want to be respectful and honorable of the victims of police violence ’cause we believe that’s like an issue that is actually substantive that we actually want to give voice to. We don’t want to take away their voice.”
Subramanian continued: “We got our anger out yesterday. We’re going to keep organizing. We’re going to keep protesting. But today we’re going to let the victims of police violence have their time.”
On Monday, supporters of Sanders’ presidential campaign jeered a number of speakers urging voters to back Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee who defeated him in the primary. It was not immediately clear whether other delegations would be onboard with the plan or how widespread the agreement for Tuesday night was. “We’re one of the largest delegations,” Subramanian pointed out. So the New York actions could have an impact in the hall.
“Honestly, it’s impossible to really get a constant message between all the delegates,” Hess noted. “Being grassroots, it’s not coming down from the top, so…” Ideas will come up from one network and spread, said Subramanian.
And the absence of boos isn’t going to mean silence, either. Pro-Sanders chants are still on the agenda for the evening during the roll call of the state delegations.
“We’re going to stand strong. We’re going to be affirmative,” said Subramanian. But the main goal of the evening would be to allow the speakers to “expose structural racism, which we think is a huge priority in this campaign.”
“We’re going to be affirmative today, but we’re going to stick to our guns,” she said. “Be affirmative, let people, the victims of police violence, have their moment in the spotlight and bring this issue to light which has been ignored by the mainstream media … because of all this circus.”
“And tomorrow, and the next day, we will be organizing again, for demonstrations” inside the convention hall, she said. “But today — tonight — it’s for these people.”
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