Culture

Twitter Reacted With Skepticism To The CNN Democratic Debate’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ Question

At Tuesday evening’s CNN Democratic Debate, Anderson Cooper tossed the mic over to Don Lemon, who presented “the question that has tripped some of the candidates out on the campaign trail.” Lemon’s presentation of such issues can be spotty, but he toned down the editorializing and allowed the question to stand: “Do Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter?”

Bernie Sanders answered first with an immediate and unequivocal statement. Sanders has previously been met with friction from Black Lives Matter activists, so his answer was highly anticipated. His first sentence was met with applause. He continued to more punctuated claps from the audience.

“Black lives matter. And the reason those words matter is the African American community knows that on any given day, some innocent person like Sandra Bland can get into a car. And then three days later, she can end up dead in jail. Or their kids are gonna get shot. We need to combat institutional racism from top to bottom, and we need major, major reform in a broken criminal justice system in which we have more people in jail in China. And I intend to tackle that issue to make sure our people have education and jobs rather than jail cells.”

After all the candidates answered, Twitter ruled on how well the debate handled the subject. Some were simply happy the question was asked while others remained skeptical:

Bernie Sanders was largely praised for his consideration of the issue.
https://twitter.com/illuminiah/status/654114274122448896

Hillary Clinton also received a positive response, but Jim Webb didn’t score nearly as well as Sanders or Clinton:

https://twitter.com/emmavandyke_/status/654115384463900673

Several tweeters noticed that the answers didn’t go deep enough, and some candidates have revised their stance over the past few months:

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