Dinea Evans and I sat down for a political heart to heart just one week after we both returned from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where she served as a national delegate for Bernie Sanders inside the convention and I helped to amplify the voices of those protesting outside the convention in my role as a militant journalist for Liberation News.
We got talking about homelessness, education policy and local politics, and I almost forgot to turn on the recorder until she said, “I am so over the Democratic Party.”
Speaking of her experience at the convention, Evans said, “Being at the convention, being placed in an arena with other Democrats, where we had to, I felt like we were going against each other, and there was a false sense of unity that they showed to the world. I was a part of their charade.
“I’ve really thought hard about what to do after the convention. Where do I go from here? Do I stay a part of the Democratic Party? And vote for a platform, which means I would vote for Hillary Clinton. That’s the first option. I’ve thought really hard about that option, and whether or not I could submit myself to a party that is full of corruption, lies, deceitfulness, money, greedy money, could I submit myself to that party in order to stay a Democrat and try to make a change in the Democratic Party?
“What would that look like for me? That would look like me running for office as a Democrat, that would look like me joining committees, learning how to write platforms and resolutions to try to get them passed into legislation, that would look like me running for the Executive Board of my local Democrats.”
I interjected, “You don’t sound very excited about that.”
“No, they’re all OK ideas, but at the end of the day, I have to stay true to myself. I have to go back to day number one; I have to remind myself why I got involved in the first place.
“What pushed me to get arrested at Jim McDermott’s office, what pushed me to go to caucus, what pushed me to become a volunteer, volunteering more than a 100 plus hours, what pushed me to want to become a national delegate, what pushed me to do all these things? What was the driving force? It’s the same values that I share with Bernie Sanders. Integrity, integrity is at the core of who I am and what I stand for. Inclusion, include everybody. Transparency. And after a lot of consideration, I’m going to leave the Democratic Party — and I’m not going to be quiet about it.
“It’s time, and frankly, I’m going to try to bring as many people as possible with me.
“And to those that say, without my vote, that means I’m voting for Donald Trump, it’s time they woke up, and it’s time they understood, that if we continue to live in fear, and we continue to do what we’re told to do–or else–then we’re never going to see a change for the people in this country.”
How change really comes about
At this point, I started thinking about the issues we had been talking about before turning on the recorder, like homelessness and education policy. I had to compare the passion Evans clearly showed for those issues, in her body language, her tone of voice, and compare that to the flat tone she took while discussing a potential future in the Democratic Party. I asked Evans what impact on these issues could be made by organizing in the Democratic Party.
“I get the sense of us starting to be trained to say these things, to believe these things. You write the resolutions, you get them passed, but the truth is, that is not how things are decided. You don’t write things down and then they are passed. Usually, how things get done in this country, is with money. It’s usually how things get done. It’s either money or you have to be loud.
“So, I’m definitely going to take a different route. When [socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama] Sawant got $15 an hour passed, it wasn’t because she went up the route of writing this down and getting it passed that way—she rallied. She rallied. I see us going back to getting things done a different way, the people organizing. The people believing in what their rights are and what they see needs to be done and then pushing until we achieve our goals, because the Democratic way, for me it’s not working. I don’t see it working for my brothers and sisters who are homeless, I don’t see it working for my children in public schooling, that have large class sizes, where teachers are tired, I’m not getting reports sent at home, they are underpaid. I don’t see it working there, I don’t see it working in the mental health system.”
We talked for a while about the particular crisis of mental health in Washington State, how people with mental illness in crisis may literally find themselves chained to a gurney in the emergency room due to a shortage of behavioral health beds, how working class and poor people in mental health crisis must attempt to navigate a complex system of Medicare and Obamacare, how mental health problems create a “domino effect” wherein someone loses their job, then has no money, becomes homeless, gets involved in crime, and so on. “We really need to change some of these issues.”
I asked Evans, “When you look around Washington State, and you talk about money, you see these incredibly wealthy corporations like Microsoft and Bill Gates, Amazon, Boeing, all these companies that are getting these amazing tax breaks, and then you hear that [people with mental illness] are being treated that way in part due to lack of appropriate resources, you go, ‘Why are we not directing the resources to the places where there are the greatest needs?’”
With a sarcastic edge to her voice, Evans replied, “Well, they must think that it is more important to put money into a charter school so they can run the school, that must be most important, to take a school that will fit a selected group of children and forget the millions of children that are in public school.”
Shining a light on delegate organizing
Turning back to Evan’s experience in Philadelphia at the DNC, I said, “Thinking about the delegates, I think you guys were in a tough situation, but you also inspired a lot of people around the country and around the world, by not just going along to get along with what the plan was, to project this unity and coronate Hillary Clinton as the nominee. I was just curious…I started hearing rumors that delegates were secretly planning certain things, and now that it’s all over and you don’t have to worry about losing your credential, do you want to share about some of the behind the scenes stuff that was going on, as you planned going in and then a little bit about what happened there?”
With a smile Evans recounted, “When we became elected, we started reaching out to each other, and in Washington, we started organizing at the state convention. Actually, I take that back. The day I got elected as a national delegate, we went out to dinner and started planning.”
“How many were there?
“There were four of us from my district. Four of the eight. So we started organizing within hours of being elected. And that grew and grew, and at the State Convention, when we got our at-large and PELO [party elected official] delegates, we started organizing there. We set up an interstate communication team, where we reached out to different states, and we set up a point of contact, so delegates were in charge of a couple states, and we reached out via Facebook mostly, and had a point of contact for every state, so if we had a plan to put in action, we could just reach out, make sure we were on the same page, which is incredibly hard to do with 1900 people, it’s insane. At the same time, we had other channels, Slack channels, Facebook groups, apps we were using, so many, it’s hard to keep up with it…”
“So much social media, so little time…”
“So much! Your phone is constantly going off. But anyways, the big question was, what are we going to do, how are we going to make an impact? Some people wanted to do shirts, some people wanted to do hats, some people wanted to do this and that, and we were about, our delegates went to Ellensburg, we met in Ellensburg [Washington], we had a meeting, at that meeting, nobody to me was really addressing what to me was the pink elephant in the room, which was what are we going to do? And in the meeting I walked up to Richard May and Dan Satton, they are both delegates, and I said, ‘You guys, we are going to walk out.” That’s where it started. The rest is organizing. And our delegates are incredible organizers. And they just made it all happen…The sad thing is, people don’t even know about the walkout, it’s not broadcast.”
I told her: “I am hoping this interview will help get that out. We spent a week in Philly, mostly interviewing people outside the convention on the streets, Bernie supporters in the streets because we wanted to amplify that voice, what people were thinking, how their thoughts were changing. The walkouts were very much on everybody’s minds, and people who were there to demonstrate outside the convention really took heart from that, that the delegates were doing this, that they weren’t just going along, that they were showing resistance inside the convention, despite what we know was very real pressure on them to conform. I don’t know if you felt that love coming back to you from the people in the streets, but it was very real.”
Evans responded warmly, “The people have been absolutely amazing, the supporters…On the last day [of the Convention], on day 4, when we walked out, those that could walk during the speech, I was one of those that walked out and broadcast from my media outlet, citizen’s media, and showed myself outside the convention center. Once the other delegates were able to join us, we marched and met with the other delegates and went to FDR Park and spoke out there. I definitely felt that connection of ‘Thank you, thank you, you guys really did it.’”
I wanted to ask one last thing. “When we were in Philly, we spoke with a man who said getting involved in the Bernie Movement brought him out of a very deep depression and gave him something to live for. Can you relate to that?”
“I relate to that 100 percent.” She explained how before getting involved, she was in a very dark place in her life. “Now I am so excited about my life. Now I am so motivated to want to make changes and be involved… I couldn’t be happier with my life, there is so much support, I am part of so many Bernie groups. I know these people believe what I believe, so no matter what, no matter where I go, whatever town, state, city I’m in, I know that I have people just like me, that believe in the movement, and that’s a good feeling.”
