Black Lives Matter meets #MeToo

Columnist Marcus Harrison Green tells us about a troubling rift and the resulting rebirth in the local arm of the social movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been active in Seattle for more than four years. But it wasn’t until this past December that a trio of activists created the first official BLM chapter in the region, Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County (BLMSKC). The catalyst for this, organizers say, was the harassment and abuse that some male BLM leaders had allegedly been exacting on women and gender non-conforming members of the movement. In this week’s episode, South Seattle Emerald editor and Seattle Weekly columnist Marcus Harrison Green talks about Black Lives Matter’s #MeToo moment—and how the fight for one kind of justice can sometimes overshadow other injustices. As the nation grapples with revelation after revelation of sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination in the workplace, Green discusses a history of the same thing happening within social movements.