A Clinton Presidency Has Been/Would Be a Disaster for Black and Brown Communities. Here’s Why.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/02/a-clinton-presidency-has-beenwould-be-a-disaster-for-black-and-brown-communities-heres-why.html

A Clinton Presidency Has Been/Would Be a Disaster for Black and Brown Communities. Here’s Why.
Posted on February 25, 2016 by Yves Smith

By Linwood F Tauheed, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Missouri — Kansas City. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives

Bill and Hillary Clinton used a pragmatic, practical, realistic, racist ‘southern strategy’ to win the White House in 1992. Hillary Clinton tried unsuccessfully to use the same strategy in 2008 against Barack Obama. This is history, what’s changed?

Hillary Clinton’s pragmatic, practical, ‘realistic’ mantra about how she would operate as president can be boiled down to: ‘Take what you can get’. In today’s political climate this means the same thing it meant in the political climate of Bill Clinton’s presidency, it means: ‘Take what Republicans give’.

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This is not about how a Hillary Clinton presidency would be a disaster for Black and Brown communities because of what her husband has already done to destroy those communities. That past is prologue. No, it goes far beyond that. This is about how Hillary Clinton would operate on her own as president; with the same pragmatic, ‘take what you can get’ devotion as Bill Clinton.

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The “wars” on crime and drugs were campaign tactics, later enacted into laws starting with the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970, as part of Richard Nixon’s and later Ronald Reagan’s ‘southern strategy’. Nixon’s ‘southern strategy’ was developed by Nixon political analyst Kevin Phillips who said in 1970:

The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republican.[vii]

Phillips’ southern strategy was a success. Replace “Negrophobe” by “racist” and the reason for the mass movement of former Democratic southern white voters to the Republican party becomes clear.

And, Bill Clinton wanted those “Negrophobe whites” back in the Democratic party. This meant out-doing Republicans in playing on racist fears; promising to ‘end welfare as we know it’, and being ‘tough on crime’. And so Bill Clinton began ‘dog-whistling’ to racist whites that he was a “New Democrat” who would no longer take a back seat to any Republican when it came to standing up to Black and Brown people.

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[Thinkingabout]

1. It is intersting this article talks about war on crime, has anyone looked at

Who voted yes on this bill in Congress? Clinton signed a bill which was passed in congress and Sanders voted for the bill, ergo, just as Hillary's vote on IWR is blamed for the Iraqi invasion, then Sanders can be blamed for the war on crime.