Why is Clinton so popular among African Americans?

[EndElectoral]

I just read 'bigtree's' wonderful column on the front page regarding race and encourage all to do so.

And I began to think about the BLM movement and particularly the recent interruptions to Hillary on the campaign trail by this group. After all the votes have indicated she is quite popular among African-Americans - they're voting for her in substantial majorities. There are many videos of Clinton's encounters with this group so you can view them at your leisure. They're uncomfortable to watch but I suppose this is part of BLM's intention. To confront a candidate about something they've said on the record and engender a response. I respect that. It's part of the accountabilty of our free speech.

But after reading an article in The Nation, a progressive magazine, regarding Clinton's popularity by the African American community I am now a bit dumbfounded. HRC was not popular in the 2008 primary with African Americans so where has this new found admiration emerged?

I encourage once again everyone to read 'bigtree's' race column on the front page, and also to read this article from The Nation before responding.

http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/

Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.
By Michelle Alexander
FEBRUARY 10, 2016

...

When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”

Some might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hillary Clinton for the policies her husband championed years ago. But Hillary wasn’t picking out china while she was first lady. She bravely broke the mold and redefined that job in ways no woman ever had before. She not only campaigned for Bill; she also wielded power and significant influence once he was elected, lobbying for legislation and other measures. That record, and her statements from that era, should be scrutinized. In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Both Clintons now express regret over the crime bill, and Hillary says she supports criminal-justice reforms to undo some of the damage that was done by her husband’s administration. But on the campaign trail, she continues to invoke the economy and country that Bill Clinton left behind as a legacy she would continue. So what exactly did the Clinton economy look like for black Americans? Taking a hard look at this recent past is about more than just a choice between two candidates. It’s about whether the Democratic Party can finally reckon with what its policies have done to African-American communities, and whether it can redeem itself and rightly earn the loyalty of black voters.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Excellent! You have reposted that article yet again today! Thank you. It's never enough.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Not everybody has seen it...

...eight times.

It's the eighth reading that really disqualifies the 85-15 splits, believe me.

[Cali_Democrat]

11. It's like the 2008 Keith Olbermann video that DUers have posted dozens and dozens of times

Once I saw it for the the 53rd time, I decided to switch my vote to Bernie.

[Starry Messenger]

3. We hit 51 times posted folks.

Who had this date in the pool?

[Snotcicles]

4. This is the first I've read this. Thanks for posting. nt

[Jitter65]

5. Why don't you post those articles that oppose this article? nt

[nichomachus]

7. Because

They got nothing. All Mrs. Clinton's gang has left are snide comments and dismissive putdowns. And the rot starts at the top.

[brentspeak]

6. Decades of networking with black congresspeople and prominent black leaders

And being the wife of an affable former president popular with black voters. And a clever PR campaign that hasn't exactly highlighted her and Bill's connections to Wall Street figures who have impoverished the AA community.

[Cheese Sandwich]

8. It's a brand. She tried to brand herself a gay icon too but it didn't work for some reason

The alleged historic ties between Hillary and the black community are actually pretty weak.

In 2008 it proved to be a real weakness. And there is also some historic record of straight up hostility. Like the super-predator thing. Like the Clinton-era drug war and incarceration rates, like her racialized campaign against Obama in 2008.

She needed a political makeover.

So her team launched an amazing marketing campaign to rebrand Hillary as some super friend to the black community. This involved issuing propaganda photos of Hillary surrounded by a lot of black people, especially women. Bill Clinton was great for African Americans in a lot of ways, so they reminded us of those good parts of his record. Black political leaders flocked to her team just like white political leaders did the same, and that gave her a boost too.

And then finally, Bernie Sanders became her leading rival. His campaign was centered around a white voter base and based in vermont which is super white. He somewhat neglected to talk about race issues in the opening phase of his campaign. The Clinton team seized upon that "excessive whiteness" as a way to attack Sanders, and to make her campaign seem much more racially inclusive in contrast. To be fair, her campaign was truly more inclusive so this contrast with Sanders became the thing that made it glaringly obvious. To be fair to Sanders, he adjusted, but it was too late, the damage was done. And also remember in the very early stages of the campaign Hillary had tons of money while Sanders was on a shoestring budget. She had the money to go long and deep to build organization everywhere, like in South Carolina and through the south. Until his campaign really took off, without a lot of money, he was concentrating on the first two states NH and Iowa where he hoped to break through.

African Americans everywhere but especially in the south tend to be much more religious than most people. The Hillary campaign played her religion. We learned that she reads the bible every day and has a close personal relationship with a pastor who emails her every day. By contrast, the south is always hostile territory for a northern secular jew. Don't count Florida obviously. But just look at the number of Jewish liberals they are electing in the deep south and see it's not many.

[yodermon]

9. Hillary will continue the Obama legacy. The identity politics

that drew AA's to Obama is continuing through Hillary.

Bernie is an old white male liberal from new England, and he's gonna swoop down from on high and save Black folks from that awful Obama legacy?! Not likely.

I say that as a white male liberal voting for Bernie in NC in 12 days. I feel the frustration but it is what it is.

[Meldread]

15. It's actually more than that, though you're right in part...

I think a bigger problem was exemplified by his wife (unintentionally) last night in an interview with Chris Hayes. She basically stated that the reason they were losing with the black vote, was because they had hoped to avoid identity politics and craft a message that appealed to everyone.

I think this is something that sounds good on paper, but it underlays a serious and consistent problem in white heterosexual liberal thinking. There is this belief that the goal should be to treat everyone equally, and therefore to do that we should paper over the things that divide us. We should, instead, focus on the things that unite us. Then, after we are together, these other issues will start to mend themselves on their own. They see the problems that minority groups face as simply cultural problems, or the problems of bad actors.

The truth of the matter is that the problems minorities face (not just African Americans) is inherent in the system itself. Yes, it has its roots in culture, but the people of that culture have then gone on to construct institutions that perpetuate the problem. Often, a lot of the struggles faced are not necessarily the result of people acting with intentional malice, but people acting out of ignorance or making decisions that are informed by social prejudice.

Therefore, the only way forward is to NOT blind ourselves to the things that divide us. Instead, that's where the focus needs to be, because that is where the problems exist. Where we come together, then, is not behind things that we all agree on more broadly, but instead over solutions to the problems that are dividing us.

When Bernie Sanders stands up and talks about income inequality, I believe in his mind and in his heart he is talking about everyone. He is not thinking about just one group of people. However, by not addressing specifically the causes of economic inequality among African Americans, what he is really talking about is economic inequality of white Americans, and even more specifically white male blue collar Americans.

The problem is that a lot of those blue collar Americans are racists. They don't care and they don't want to hear about the problems facing African Americans. Therefore, my fear is that Bernie Sanders knows this, and deliberately does not go into the issues that need to be addressed--not out of ignorance of those issues (though that could be the reason he doesn't), but because he is afraid of losing a significant portion of his white base. The table or the tent (however you prefer the metaphor) simply is not big enough to include everyone. A choice has to be made.

Contrast this with Hillary, who saw a way to outflank Sanders, and then proceeded to go all in on the African American community. Whether you believe she is telling the truth or not is irrelevant. She's essentially left herself no choice but to cleave to African Americans, because she has given up the racists who are part of the white blue collar voting block.

[EffieBlack]

10. Maybe because we don't want to be anywhere near Bernie supporters like you ...

who seem to think we're stupid, that a candidate we've barely heard of before he realized a few months ago that he needed our votes to become president is entitled to our vote because of something he did more than 50 years ago, and that they have every right to lecture and berate us if we don't agree with them.

[Cali_Democrat]

14. "we don't want to be anywhere near Bernie supporters like you"

[yardwork]

16. This is so obvious, even this white girl gets it.

Anybody who doesn't get it, doesn't want to get it.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. Agree

Willful ignorance is not pretty.

[Octafish]

12. It's an important article by a leading intellectual.

The fact she happens to be a woman is important, too.

[onenote]

13. Probably more than any other reason, this:

Why does the AA community support Clinton now after she tried to deny Obama the nomination in 2008? I think it comes down to this: If Clinton had walked away after losing the nomination to Obama, and had stayed on the sidelines, she would have burned her bridges to the AA community. But she didn't do that. She endorsed Obama. She campaigned for him and urged her supporters to work on Obama's behalf. And she became part of the Obama team after the election.

That, in my opinion, went a long way to solidifying her status in the AA community -- a community that still overwhelmingly supports Obama. Call it identity politics. Call it loyalty. Doesn't really matter. It is what it is and its not easily changed.

[EndElectoral]

19. Thanks. Hadn't heard that before. Not really her policies as much as her loyalty to Obama

Appreciate your answer.

[KingFlorez]

17. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas sure showed this author something

Resounding majorities of the black vote.