2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie and his program have never been dismissive of black voters.
Yes, we could have done better at outreach in the early days, but that was oversight, just oversight. This campaign never, at any point, worked on the assumption that we didn't NEED voters of color. And Bernie himself has never treated racism as a secondary issue.
He talks more about economic justice because no other Democratic candidate was talking about it at all-the others were all just fine with Wall Street calling the tune in American life. And it was always clear that his economic proposals would account for the ways that racism made life worse(including making economic life worse)and would do more for the victims of racism.
The only reason he talked about getting people to look beyond color(a call that was aimed MORE at working-class whites than at POC) was to build a greater unity, to build a broader coalition of deep, systemic change, the kind of change that would inevitably include a massive campaign against institutional bigotry. It was never a call to treat racism as if it didn't matter, and no one of the left would EVER treat racism as if it didn't matter. The left supports ALL struggles for justice.
Finally, a person who was himself violently arrested by the cops for protesting racism(and who resisted arrest)was always going to care about stopping police brutality.
Bernie himself, and those of his supporters out in the real world, have never been contemptuous of people of color. As people of the left, we were automatically going to be committed antiracists-the 1960's, the left in the US, which has been multiracial and multiethnic since at least the 1930's has always fought just as hard for social justice as for economic justice. It was POC OF THE LEFT who developed the concept of "intersectionality".
If you support HRC, fine. That's your call. But no one needs to accuse Bernie of failings he doesn't have to justify that support. There was never any real reason for anyone to think a Sanders administration would leave POC out in the cold or not fight passionately against racism.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Here's the truth: the Clinton legacy has left our prisons bursting at the seams. Real lives have been destroyed as a result. It is an indisputable fact that millions of Black people were locked up for drug crimes and provided the bodies for the expansion of the prison industry.
The 1994 Crime Bill that she so vigorously defended not only expanded incarceration, but stripped funding for college education from prisoners. The Clinton legacy allowed for policies that prevented anyone convicted of a felony drug offense from receiving food stamps or income assistance. Clinton-led welfare reform fundamentally ripped apart the social safety net.
Black Lives Activist Ashley Williams
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)It was a narrative started by the Clinton campaign almost immediately after he filed to run.