Vermont’s Black Leaders: "We Were Invisible to Sanders"

[Marokai Backbeat]

This one is quite disputed, but nonetheless there is an effort to desperately make Sanders into a civil rights icon at any cost.

The only reason anyone is trying to do this is because Clinton supporters are desperate to paint Bernie as a crazy old racist white guy that doesn't care about black people. No one is ever able to clearly explain how this is the case, mind you.

This is especially ironic considering Clinton's racist campaigning in 2008, but of course, who cares about consistency.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Economic inequality IS the root of racism though. The alternative is that people hate other people based on the amount of melanin in their skin, which is stupid. Why don't people hate other people based on their hair or eye color then? The answer is obvious. Because there are no uniform socio-economic trends among people with the same eye color or hair color. Additionally, even if racism was based solely on skin color, there's not much the government can do about it. The government can certainly have some impact on economics but it can't go inside stupid people's brains and make them not hate dark people, so there's no point in talking about that.

You have made much better posts than this.

[Marokai Backbeat]

But not one - including Hillary Clinton - actually put themselves out there or sacrificed anything to help end injustice against minorities.

Sincere question: What does this really mean? This is an easy thing to say, but in all of these conversations I don't understand what could possibly qualify for this. Beyond lending vocal support to these causes, being on the right side of these issues, and lending their images (as Hillary and Bernie have both done to varying degrees over their lives) what more could be done? What is the chasm in their records that shows they haven't done enough for minorities? What even is "enough"?

[Marokai Backbeat]

But not one - including Hillary Clinton - actually put themselves out there or sacrificed anything to help end injustice against minorities.

Sincere question: What does this really mean? This is an easy thing to say, but in all of these conversations I don't understand what could possibly qualify for this. Beyond lending vocal support to these causes, being on the right side of these issues, and lending their images (as Hillary and Bernie have both done to varying degrees over their lives) what more could be done? What is the chasm in their records that shows they haven't done enough for minorities? What even is "enough"?

Very good question. Similar question: How exactly do you address the plight of African Americans WITHOUT discussing economics? There's criminal justice reform (on which Sanders is far more radical than Clinton) but beyond that, what else? How do you address that people are poor without talking about economics? Wring your hands about "White supremacy" and self flagellate over privilege? Those seem to be the only things people call for and they don't actually do anything. Certainly not compared to universal access to higher education and health care, which have very real concrete effects.

The irony is that for all the talk about "intersectionality" - this concept that issues of institutional racism and sexism are a result of a confluence of factors that are reinforcing - Hillary makes statements like "If we broke up the big banks tomorrow… would that end racism? Would that end sexism?" She preaches intersectionality and the idea that these issues are so much more complicated than one thing, but acts as if there's one magic pill herself, dismissing individual issues that would have a measurable effect on reducing racial and gender inequalities, because they wouldn't just solve it all at once. It makes no sense.

There was a point in one of the early Democratic debates where Hillary was asked point-blank if she would take a position on decriminalizing marijuana. She flatly said "No." When asked the same question, Bernie said he would support it. That alone would do more for reducing racial inequalities than any symbolic nonsense Hillary spews in her stump speeches, using words written by university graduates that she clearly doesn't even understand.