"Black Lives Matter Movement Offers Badly Needed Lessons on Electoral Politics"

"In his speeches, Sanders has begun promising to end institutional and other forms of racism.

It is highly unlikely he would have spontaneously decided racial justice was important on his own. Like many white progressives, he mistakenly conflated economic injustice with racism, as if by addressing the former one can automatically solve the latter...

Elections are not the totality of political organizing, although every four years that fact is lost on many of us. Elections take up so much space in our media diet and political discourse that the goal invariably becomes about electing one’s favorite candidate. And then the disappointment stemming from seeing an elected president break one campaign promise after another dilutes any leverage and kills hope in the political process. People walk away, throwing their hands in the air, feeling defeated. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In just a short time, BLM has raised awareness of police brutality and related issues in African-American communities. Now the movement is influencing the mainstream political discourse in a way very few movements on the left have been able to do. We need to laud it, not denounce it. We need to emulate it, not shut it down."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/black_lives_matter_movement_offers_badly_needed_lessons_on_electoral_politi

Yes, being political instead of waiting for political figures to realize our politics - or adapting our politics to the powers that be, in order to feel represented.