I stumbled across this blog in doing some research on Bernie Sanders yesterday.
It struck me as quite a different perspective on what matters politically from a race perspective. Here's the starter:
In the 1960s it wasn’t the hardest thing in the world for someone like him to step into that movement and play a part. Even someone on the fence with their racism could see how wrong segregation was and how inhumane black people were being treated under it. That’s so easy we still allow teachers to teach it that way in schools: that the television saved black people by enlightening white people over dinner about racism. That doesn’t make Sanders bad or mean he never cared about black people. But we didn’t check everything off the black problem to-do list in 1964. Black problems persist. And because they persist, people who work to solve those problems must be measured on a “what have you done for me lately” yardstick.
I never looked at it this way, but maybe he's right. For a long time there hasn't been a concerted effort in the US to continue to progress as a society in bringing equality to more of us. I would include race, LGBT, and others in the group. Then there's this:
Because in 2015 Bernie Sanders is to black liberation what Kim Kardashian’s book career is to publishing: it’s just enough effort to be able to put it on your resume. I know that sentence is hard to read, Bernie fans, but I need you to understand what I said from the beginning: the problem isn’t that Sanders has been walking around trumpeting black causes without doing black work. He’s not a hypocrite. He hasn’t been doing black work for a long time, nor has he been trumpeting the causes. By your own count, he hasn’t done the actual work in fifty – FIFTY – years. But that just makes him just like every other white American. In that way his efforts are completely average at best. No, the problem is with the movement around Sanders, which is so eager for his success that they interpret any criticism of his platform or history as an enemy attack.
https://scottwoodsmakeslists.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/you-dont-get-to-tell-me-bernie-sanders-is-my-friend/
I don't offer this as a condemnation of Bernie. I offer it to say maybe this guy is right. Bernie is just like the rest of us white Americans (myself included). We're just not doing enough to make a difference.
I'll be watching over the next few months to see which of Clinton or Sanders is able to develop the broadest coalition. I do have one rule of thumb I try to live by when voting. That is, the voters who support the candidate have to look like the folks I see when walking the mall...period. If their voters don't, as a block, look like what I see at the mall, they're probably doing something wrong. That may sound stupid or dumb to some, but for me it would be hard for me to vote for anyone knowing a large segment of my neighbors can't stand them.
So there you have it. I'm no Bravenak or 1SBM, but it's something to consider lol.
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