Anyone read Senator Sanders' book "Outsider in the White House"(2015)?

[KitSileya]

If you have, especially if you listened to the audio book, can you confirm or deny that Senator Sanders used the N-word in it? That's what's floating around twitter today, but I'd like to verify it independently.


(Warning: the audio file linked in the tweet clearly says the n-word, not the euphemism. )

Link to tweet

I disagree with the clip entirely, of course, but if he actually used the n-word? I mean, seriously? That shows a level of insensitivity to race that is frightening in someone running for the Democratic nomination.

[George II]

1. I haven't read it yet, but it's available for download, hardcover, or softcover on Amazon.

[KitSileya]

2. I'm recovering from dental surgery,

so I thought I'd take the easy way out. There's got to be people on this board who've read the book, and can answer my question. I just get too infuriated with how he centers white workers in his politics (and by white workers, I betcha he means white *male* workers) to read his books.

[Cha]

33. I'm sure it is. :(

[crazytown]

3. the audio file linked in the tweet says the n-word with relish

almost yelling it.

I have to add, what Senator Sanders is saying is absolutely correct.

[Otto Lidenbrock]

4. Wow...was this not brought to attention in 2016?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

20. They weren't as desperate as they are now. So they will try this nonsense on for size.

[Cha]

45. It's called Vetting and there's nothing

damn funny about it.

[mikeysnot]

76. really who said this?

he called then-candidate Barack Obama “the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” He dropped out in January 2008 after he placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, and during the 2008 convention, he received zero delegate votes.

[Cha]

78. Quit trying to distract from the

hurtful word BS used in the book and audio.

[George II]

49. Desperate? Who is desperate - your candidate is rising in the polls and BS is falling....

....in the polls. In fact, a couple of days ago he dropped to #3 in RCP's average behind Elizabeth Warren.

[Cha]

79. +1

[yardwork]

50. You're a Biden supporter now? I'm surprised.

You've been a supporter of Bernie Sanders for many years. What made you change to Biden?

[TwilightZone]

55. He's not.

He thinks he's being cute.

[Cha]

58. Looks can be

deceiving.

yardwork

[LanternWaste]

77. Of course, you fail to realize the irony of your calling nonsense on nonsense...

when you see it thrown at the wall in hopes of attracting voter attention.

[W_HAMILTON]

22. Because he was treated with kid gloves because no one expected him to win the nomination.

Note that he is still being treated with kid gloves because no one expects him to win the nomination this time around either.

Until you hear the mainstream media or opposing candidates bringing up his past, uh, works of fiction, you can rest assured that no one really believes he has a chance to win the nomination.

[Otto Lidenbrock]

40. I think you are underestimating him

He has a lot of grassroots energy in his campaign. The youth are with him more than others.

[W_HAMILTON]

41. No, I'm not.

He lost the nomination by millions of votes in a two-person race and that was before people like me -- people that voted for him in 2016 -- refused to ever vote for him again in another primary after what he and his supporters did to the eventual Democratic nominee in 2016.

He has no chance. If it was really about pushing progressive policies and not just promoting himself, he would leave the race and ask his supporters to back Warren, someone that actually has a chance of winning the nomination. Sanders wasn't good enough to win in 2016 and he has no chance now that he is damaged goods among the Democratic electorate. There is a reason why his support has basically stuck right around 15% - 20%.

[yardwork]

51. I notice that at least one other long-time Sanders supporter in this thread has switched to Biden.

[Cha]

73. Really?!

[Cha]

46. Who knows, Otto?.. but we see it now.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. It's hard for me to see his obliviousness toward race in the context of his economic ideas as

anything but willful.

[yaesu]

6. what will be the next "yuge" bernie concern spam from that account

that he puts ketchup on a hotdog?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. I want to make sure I understand what you're saying -- a white presidential candidate using a

racial slur shouldn't be a concern?

[Cha]

43. Nothing about this is funny.

[Cha]

8. KR.. :(

[BannonsLiver]

9. This is disqualifying.

[Blue_true]

17. If you really look at his income inequality pitches.

He completely ignores the fact that the major piece of income inequality is due to segregation and racism.

[Cha]

44. It's certainly disgraceful. :(

[OilemFirchen]

10. This is from the Twitter responses. I don't know if it's authentic.

[Cha]

47. Thanks.

[KitSileya]

52. Thanks you for posting this!

At least he put the n-word in air quotes, even though that is not apparent in the audio book. That's more than he did when he called women like me "b!tch" in one of his essays in his 30s. I'll leave it to African Americans to judge his use of the n-word, while I judge him harshly for calling women the b-word - as when he said heroic survivor Susan Sweetser was too brassy, b!tchy, and loud-mouthed when she was daring to run against him in 1996 to get justice for other rape survivors in Vermont.

[Cha]

60. Wow.. I hadn't even

heard about Susan Sweetser.

[KitSileya]

61. I guess it's ok if you do it to a Republican

(Hint: it's not ok, even if you're using it on a Republican.) And he definitely called older women teachers for b!tches in one of his essays - apparently we give boys cancer because we do not let them do what they want. (Girls, of course, get cancer from not enough orgasms, according to Senator Sanders. That's perhaps why he also writes about 13-year old girls with "sex friends".)

[Gothmog]

11. K&R

[Raine1967]

12. It seems to be accurate. That said, I have a question.

I cannot for the life of me understand why he would think it is ok, even with parenthesis, use that word. The book was originally published in 1997 and then RE-published in 2015? Why wasn't the word taken out of the audio at audible? Audible wasn't around in 1997.

I will go a step farther. I believe wasn't a person of color in the editing department for this book in 1997. When it was republished in 2015, no one bothered to reread the book for a re-edit.

[BlueMississippi]

13. Frightening indeed but judging from the makeup of his crowds

the shoe fits.

[NurseJackie]

14. His rally in North Charleston, SC is a MAJORITY BLACK city, yet only 2.5% AA were in attendance?

His rally in North Charleston, SC is a MAJORITY BLACK city, yet only 2.5% AA were in attendance? It was also being held in an historically black church in a predominantly black neighborhood... yet the crowd looked like they had been flown-in from Vermont.

All I'm saying is... if he can't "connect" or draw enough interest from locals to even bother attending his rally to hear what he has to say, then that tells me that his campaign is doomed.

Good.

[BlueMississippi]

16. Precisely my point. Thanks! nt

[Cha]

74. There was no reason to

write that hurtful word.

[BlueMississippi]

75. Precisely

We're not living in Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell times.

[NurseJackie]

15. This is disqualifying. I can't support someone like that.

[JI7]

18. didn't white workers in the south chose racism ?

[Tarheel_Dem]

19. Surely not. Remember he marched with MLK.

[NurseJackie]

23. ...

[Kahuna7]

53. And he voted for Jesse Jackson!

[Skya Rhen]

21. This can't be for real.

[Cha]

26. :(

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=268631

[SidDithers]

24. "Bernie didn't bring out the n-word to critique bigotry...

Link to tweet

Jeff Fecke @jkfecke
Bernie didn't bring out the n-word to critique bigotry. He brought it out to make excuses for poor Southern whites.

Sid

[Cha]

25. Wow!

[greatauntoftriplets]

27. Jesus H. Christ!

So it's true, but even in that context so terribly wrong.

[sheshe2]

28. I believe you are correct, Sid.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

34. Yep.

[betsuni]

36. He says whites were "given" racism and "encouraged" to scapegoat blacks.

As if they weren't already racist. It's totally the rich people's fault for putting that idea into their heads.

He said he's going to "head out to Trump country" and "we are going to talk to those people, and we are going to expose Trump as the liar and fraud that he is." By the end of the campaign "a number of people who voted for Donald Trump will understand that he is not their friend."

You just have to talk to them!

[StarfishSaver]

56. Low income racists are just victims who bear no responsibility for their racism?

Hmm. Let me think about that for a minute.

Ok, I thought about it.

No.

[Kurt V.]

29. yeah right.

[Cha]

62. Not good.

[Cha]

30. It's all over twitter just now.. not very

forgiving.

[NurseJackie]

32. Include me among those who feel the same way.

[betsuni]

37. Can you please post some good twitter threads? I never know where to look.

[Cha]

38. I shall do it in a

PM!

[betsuni]

39. Brilliant! I shall enjoy reading whilst having another cuppa.

[Cha]

42. Spot on!

[betsuni]

48. I'm gobsmacked that this is ignored by the press.

When Hillary Clinton gave a speech mentioning drug cartels/drug dealers preying on young people in American communities as superpredators, who Bernie Sanders also called "sociopaths," a lot of idiots believed the propaganda that Hillary was racist. Idiots.

[Cha]

57. I'm thinking the US

m$$$media tears down whomever is ahead.

[katmondoo]

31. NO

[Kahuna7]

35. Well well well. Where's the outrage Kamala and Cory??? I won't hold

my breath.

[Cha]

68. And, the m$$$$media?!

[treestar]

54. In fairness, he is using it in a referential way

I don't think he is a person who uses it in conversation.

Harris and Booker should pretend to find it "hurtful" however - and everyone else who found Biden to be victimizing them by mentioning that it was possible to work in the old days with very oppositional people.

[Cha]

59. Not everyone sees it

that way, treestar..

Link to tweet

More than a few POC are offended by his "gratuitously" using this.

[ecstatic]

65. I don't give him that leeway. He needs to apologize.

I'm not a fan of his because I'm already familiar with his tendency to be offensive when discussing race.

[Tom Rinaldo]

63. Controversial now, controversial then...

[ecstatic]

64. Did you see the clips of him with the school kids from 20 or

30 years ago? Similarly offensive.

[Hortensis]

72. Lol, saw the Trevor Noah show piece posted here about it.

Hilarious, but even my husband thought some of it seemed creepy. Sanders didn't mean to be of course, he was very earnest; maybe it's just a VT liberal thing.

Now, down here in rural Bible Belt Georgia, a lot of people are on the lookout for demons trying to steal their souls (really!), and many parents would not be happy with a man coming into their school and talking about Jews' "strange sexual habits" to their kids, no matter how well intentioned.

[NYMinute]

66. Who wants to read self-serving propaganda and pay for it? nt

[Cha]

67. Bernie Sanders could've said:

Last edited Tue Sep 10, 2019, 02:25 AM - Edit history (1)

I decided to edit it.. I don't want that word in my post.. even if Imani Gandy wrote it.

[Hortensis]

69. "Outsider"? :) Turns out anti-elite populists choose their leaders

from among the elites. Surprise, surely? But the twist is that the leader must be perceived as an outsider among his own elite group.

Both self-exiled SENATOR Sanders (who verbally rejects Democrats as practically the same as Repubs but votes Democratic) and BILLIONAIRE Trump (who couldn't get himself invited to anything but large fundraisers in NYC) fit this finding by researchers.

And here's U.S. Senator Sander, hitting the idea of himself as an outsider hard in the title of his book. Not a coincidence, I imagine.

[betsuni]

70. +1

[Cha]

71. Thank you!