In the lead up to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Liberation News is launching a series of interviews with the Direct Action Heroes of the 2016 primary season. These are the activists who have spoken truth to power, often putting their bodies on the line, to intervene in what is clearly a rigged and racist process.
Our first interview will be with Seattle activist Dinea Evans. Liberation interviewed Evans shortly after she was arrested in the office of U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democratic Party superdelegate, as she attempted to talk to him about changing his superdelegate vote to reflect the will of the majority of voters in his constituency and, in fact, in the state as a whole. Several months later, we caught up with her to find out how she is doing and what her plans are.
Liberation: Since you got arrested at Rep. McDermott’s office, what is the legal status of your case?
Evans: After spending six hours in jail, I was released on PR (personal recognizance). I got a paper saying that if they filed charges, I would receive something in the mail.So far I have not received anything in the mail. They have up to six months, but as of now I have no charges filed on me.
Liberation: Have there been any personal repercussions of your action (other than being arrested)?
Evans: I have not seen any negative effects, if anything it has been positive. I have received support nationwide and now I am a national delegate for Bernie Sanders. I now have a good chance to flip some superdelegates at the convention!
Liberation: When you got arrested, you were a legislative district delegate for Sen. Sanders. Tell me about how the caucus process unfolded for you.
Evans: It was quite the process. Out of the 7th Congressional District, we selected four women and four men as delegates for Bernie.
Overall some 250,000 people caucused on March 26 at the precinct level, and then 13,000 caucused at the Legislative District. So from 13,000 delegates at the LD level, it was narrowed down to 118 national delegates for entire state. So, it was quite a competitive process.
Liberation: What are your plans for Philly? What are the challenges?
Evans: My plan for Philly is to be as engaged as possible in this process, to learn as much as I can learn about the democratic process at the national level, to see the platform committee, to see the platform passed, to meet other delegates and hear their stories about how they get involved.
Regarding challenges, since there are about 5,000 delegates, 2,000 of them for Bernie, it will be a challenge to stay in touch with people, if there is a vote we all need to vote on together, we need to be able to communicate. With these kinds of numbers it’s going to be hard to keep us all on the same page.
Another challenge is the expense of being a delegate. The whole trip, including airfare, food and hotel will be $4-6 thousand dollars. I am on Social Security, I am a single mother, I don’t have money like that; I‘m barely getting by. I have been fundraising and so far I have raised $2,900.
Liberation: You have only very recently become active politically, I believe you told me last time you got first involved in March. What have you learned since then, has anything shocked or surprised you?
Evans: The thing that’s most shocking to me is the challenges that the Democratic Party will face moving forward after this election. What I mean by that, it is very clear that the establishment, the Democratic Party, is not united. To elaborate on that, what I am seeing is a Bernie or Bust movement that is really present today and then you have those that support Hillary Clinton. If Hillary is the nominee, what are they going to do about the Bernie or Bust movement that will not support the nominee if she is selected? Does that mean Donald Trump comes into office, or does a third party come into being? I’m not sure what that will look like.
Liberation: Going back to what you said about seeing the platform being passed, have you been following the news out of the platform committee discussions that have been going on? Some of the key provisions of Bernie Sanders program have been voted out of the program, like no fracking, indexing the $15 minimum wage to the cost of living, a more balanced position on Palestine and Israel. Cornel West, who is on the platform committee abstained from voting on it on moral grounds.
Evans: I respect Cornel West, he is an activist. I respect anyone who will take a stand and say, “I must take a stand, this is something I can’t support.” It is nice to see someone on the platform committee, at that level, say this is against my morality. I just know that I have a future in this process, like Cornel, I’m not afraid to say what I am honestly thinking or feeling.
To help Dinea Evans get to Philadelphia, visit her GoFundMe page.
