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In Event Honoring MLK, Bernie Sanders Comments on Race and Barack Obama Raise Eyebrows
It should be noted that Sanders really didn’t talk about Barack Obama’s presidency, other than to say that it coincided with the failure of the Democratic Party. The plaudits Sanders gave Obama centered on his smarts and charisma as a candidate.
While the dustup over Sanders’ comments about Obama may seem like an unfair misreading, another, less-talked-about exchange seems to bolster a commonly held belief that the 2016 presidential candidate is still uncomfortable talking about race.
Take this, from the Washington Post:
snip
Of course, the fight against poverty cuts across all racial demographics and is a pressing concern as economic inequality grows in the U.S. But any analysis of poverty that eschews race is incomplete and ignores very real and troubling trends—like how black and Latinx middle-class families are headed to zero wealth. It’s necessary to have targeted solutions to address this, and it’s necessary to have candidates comfortable with addressing this.
snip
But when pressed about how he changed, personally, Sanders again preferred to change the subject: “You’re asking about me. And I’m not important. What’s important are the kinds of policies that we need to transform this country. OK?”
https://www.theroot.com/in-event-honoring-mlk-bernie-sanders-comments-on-race-1825043927
While the dustup over Sanders’ comments about Obama may seem like an unfair misreading, another, less-talked-about exchange seems to bolster a commonly held belief that the 2016 presidential candidate is still uncomfortable talking about race.
Take this, from the Washington Post:
Seated with Lumumba, the senator was asked about the marginalization of black LGBTQ citizens. He shifted the question to people “you didn’t talk about” like “people working two or three jobs” and “people who spend 50 percent of their limited income on housing.” He repeatedly turned discussion of fighting racism to fighting poverty.
snip
Of course, the fight against poverty cuts across all racial demographics and is a pressing concern as economic inequality grows in the U.S. But any analysis of poverty that eschews race is incomplete and ignores very real and troubling trends—like how black and Latinx middle-class families are headed to zero wealth. It’s necessary to have targeted solutions to address this, and it’s necessary to have candidates comfortable with addressing this.
Link to tweet
snip
But when pressed about how he changed, personally, Sanders again preferred to change the subject: “You’re asking about me. And I’m not important. What’s important are the kinds of policies that we need to transform this country. OK?”
https://www.theroot.com/in-event-honoring-mlk-bernie-sanders-comments-on-race-1825043927
154 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
veer off script for a few minutes to talk about ".. the marginalization of black LGBTQ citizens".
He won't talk about other issues important to us.. if it's something off script.. you're dismissed.
Thanks, she
MO.. thank you for that reminder, LisaM
of self-serving attacks finally being examined and called out.
Isn't it Cha.
If anyone can't keep to a civil discussion they've lost the plot.
designed to belittle.. says everything about the person who throws the insult out and nothing about the target.
You laid it out in a nutshell.
all about Bernie. I'm pretty tired of it, and it seems like a lot of others are as well. His actions were shameful.
Hi sheshe2
Thank you, I agree. 
K&R 
They cut to the root.
Like Kudzu, invasive and needs to be cut to the root. Otherwise it becomes invasive.
betsuni!
I'm looking forward to that.
So am I.
He's their dream opponent.
For obvious reasons. (Which, for other obvious reasons, I will refrain from listing.)
I could find on and from him, and watching of course, that it comes from a basic unwillingness/inability to admit and connect any dots that spoil his picture. Trump does rather spectacularly outdo him in this, but not being nearly as bad is not the same as being wise.
As for his constant slaps at Democrats, he uses this chronic carping to carve out a political goals difference that really isn't there. For all his constant efforts to sound different, and what I suspect is a sincere belief that he is different, he's always voted almost entirely with Democratsduring his decades in congress, and his own narrow "platform" fits within the party's, a reductionist version eliminating 90% one might say. 
But everything about these policies, from minimum wage to free college, to infrastructure to free health care, would disproportionately benefit the least served now, which surprise, are minorities.
The only thing that might be of "benefit" is the minimum wage, which is already a Democratic Party platform position. But that only assumes a POC can get a job at all. And as it is, with the push back every time that subject of minimum wage comes up, Democrats have always been forced to get it increased through "tricks" done at the federal level (the last one was done a rider on a "must pass" supplemental appropriations bill I believe).
And "free college" only works if your primary schools have adequately prepared you for college. I have mentored a number of folks over the years at my workplace who when they finally did go back to college, had to spend the first 2 years in remedial classes just to get up to college level. That cost was not insignificant - not only monetarily but in time. And "free college" doesn't necessarily mean "free books" and other things that go along with that.
Regarding "free health care" - that requires that companies actually build clinics in communities where POC live.
And finally "infrastructure" is also something that everyone "talks about" and at least in the case of the passage of ARRA, some of it got addressed. But I am not seeing how it would "disproportionately benefit minorities"?
While that alone certainly doesn't directly affect unfair hiring practices, it puts more money into the pockets of black and latino communities, which affords more bandwidth.
That's the elephant in the room, isn't it? Companies don't hire people who don't look like them and who don't live in neighborhoods they don't live in, and won't let you move to their neighborhood so that you can have access to a better school in order to be better qualified for a job and... Need I say more? It goes nowhere fast.
Dismissing the impact of "unfair hiring practices", which is a key piece that is difficult to address, results in it getting swept under a blizzard of other rhetoric.
It gives them more breathing room to first, talk with their money, which may help demand that companies have better hiring practices, and second, put more resrouces and time into efforts that support their community...and it gives them more money to be a factor in elections, which is THE thing politicians care most about.
This is about as idealistic wishful thinking as one can find posted in this thread.
We are trying to overcome 300 years of the abject horror of racism and trying to explain that history to a populace whose own ancestors mostly came here after the Civil War, becomes extremely difficult because the understanding just isn't there. It is completely unfathomable to most.
Oddly enough though, the rise of the overt trash in the WH and his scum waving Confederate flags and heil Hitlering and so forth, have actually exposed the underbelly of what we have continually tried to tell people. I.e., THAT is driving the problems that permeate beyond anything "economic" when it comes to POC. It continues generation after generation after generation.
I.e., for a subset of whites, "economics" means that POC are "taking their piece of the pie". And for POC, "economics" is something that is almost impossible to rectify because of those who think giving POC what they earned "takes away from" someone else.
You are right of course, that the public school system is a wreck, but I'm pretty sure Sanders isn't advocating that we don't fund these schools better and more fairly. That goes along with infrastructure. That goes along with not funneling money into charters, which hasn't exactly been a 3rd rail for democrats either. Arne Duncan liked the conversion of most of the schools in New Orleans after Katrina into charters.
I'm not saying that he isn't advocating for it. But it needs to be front and center. If not, it becomes the excuse of "minorities are not qualified". I heard a news story last evening that Puerto Rico was planning to close 283 schools due to an enrollment drop due to those who fled the island and most likely also due to some infrastructure damage.
And then when you have this sort of thing going on a mere 45 minutes from D.C., there is a problem that cannot wait... but cynicism says it will -
And it's not just Baltimore. The issue is across most northern urban cities like here in Philly.
My point about more money into the communities and its impact isn't idealistic wishful thinking. That is the reality of what more money does. Is it enough? Hell no! does it do all the redress? Hell no. Is it at least more of a step in the right direction than anything we are taking? Does it actually put more money in the pockets of people of color? Well yes it does. Yes it would. That little bit adds up to something. I'm not sure who is dismissing unfair hiring practices. I don't think Sanders has, but feel free to point to it.
Tell me how "more money" gets into the "pockets of people of color" (unless they win the lottery)?
Free health care, without question will benefit those who currently go without health care. I'm just guessing here but I'd expect that to adhere closely to poverty numbers. Yes, totally, that requires that hospitals build clinics where people live. Lets require that. Lets not shy away from free health-care because currently health-care sucks and has these black holes of coverage. That said, why wouldn't they build clinics here if hospitals had a guarantee of payment from the state? That is money being spent on actual health related care rather than on the insurance racket. So why not tap this base to get that money? is there something I'm missing here?
I don't think anyone is arguing against "free healthcare". And I agree 100% that 3rd party "insurance" is a racket. But keep in mind that Social Security's REAL name is "Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" (OASDI). So something related to "insurance" is required. But as you saw over the past 80 years, trying to get anything through Congress even associated with "healthcare" is virtually impossible. And what does get put in place, is attacked unmercifully and threatened with removal. And that includes Medicare and of course Medicaid, let alone the existing ACA. And you mention "payments from the state"... Good luck with that one in certain states! And when you try to "require it", boom! SCOTUS and "states rights" happens. The Medicaid expansion under the ACA was going to do just that and be required everywhere - i.e., providing funding, 100% from the Federal government and then shared with the states (amounting only to 10% state/90% feds in I think 2019), and that was thrown out by the SCOTUS. So then "blue" and "purple" states still attempted some type of expansion - whether full or modified and most (not all) red states said f-that and refused. They REFUSED MONEY. And there was nothing anyone could do about it (except mobilize and elect different people as governors and/or legislators).
As to saying disproportianatley, that's just unfortunate language. I should say proportionally. Those least served deserve the most redress to that reailty. Infrastructure, you are right, should benefit everybody, though if you look at upper class white neighborhoods, and the rich parts of the city, infrastructure is not being ignored.
Exactly - "upper class white neighborhoods and "rich parts of the city". And it rarely "trickles down" to anyone beyond that.
And so what happens is that you get the hue and cry of "you can't throw money at the problem". And that excuse is believed. And if by chance money does get "thrown at the problem", it often results in greedy MFers who manage to get said contracts, and then do exactly what the cynical pundits say happens - rampant waste by not carrying out careful planning and/or they steal it.
IMHO, we need to consider going back to revenue-sharing. Not "block grants" but "sharing". Although in order for that to be effective, we need take states back and consider following some of the strategies that Jerry Brown put in place after Ahhhnold bankrupted the state and imposed draconian cuts.
1986
Federal Revenue-Sharing: Born 1972. Died 1986. R.I.P.
By JAMES M. CANNON: JAMES M. CANNON WAS AN ASSISTANT TO GOV. NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER, PRESIDENT GERALD R. FORD, THE FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER and HOWARD BAKER.
In the first week of October, 39,000 cities, counties, towns, villages and other communities across the county received checks from the Treasury, some as small as $201. The biggest -$41,957,530 - went to New York City. With these checks, the program of Federal revenue-sharing came to an end, 14 years and $85 billion after it began.
In that span of time, from before Watergate to the afternoon of the Reagan era, this low-overhead, highly practical, widely popular program brought an extraordinary array of benefits to the people of New York and every state. Revenue-sharing paid for teachers in Manhattan and streetlights in Buffalo, provided snowplows for Adirondack villages and built the community hall and ice rink in New Hartford.
Now revenue-sharing is finished, a victim of the mounting Federal debt and a Washington tradition of preaching intergovernmental cooperation while practicing every-government-for-itself. After October, 80 percent of America's small towns - too small to mount expensive lobbying campaigns for grants from the huge Federal bureaucracies - will be disfranchised in terms of direct financial aid from the Government.
For a Federal program, the idea of revenue-sharing was simple. The Government collects taxes, at which it is very effective, and shares a small part of them with state and local governments, which are more effective at identifying day-to-day needs. The corollary was that elected officials, not appointed bureaucrats, should decide where tax money ought to be spent.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/10/opinion/federal-revenue-sharing-born-1972-died-1986-rip.html
Federal Revenue-Sharing: Born 1972. Died 1986. R.I.P.
By JAMES M. CANNON: JAMES M. CANNON WAS AN ASSISTANT TO GOV. NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER, PRESIDENT GERALD R. FORD, THE FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER and HOWARD BAKER.
In the first week of October, 39,000 cities, counties, towns, villages and other communities across the county received checks from the Treasury, some as small as $201. The biggest -$41,957,530 - went to New York City. With these checks, the program of Federal revenue-sharing came to an end, 14 years and $85 billion after it began.
In that span of time, from before Watergate to the afternoon of the Reagan era, this low-overhead, highly practical, widely popular program brought an extraordinary array of benefits to the people of New York and every state. Revenue-sharing paid for teachers in Manhattan and streetlights in Buffalo, provided snowplows for Adirondack villages and built the community hall and ice rink in New Hartford.
Now revenue-sharing is finished, a victim of the mounting Federal debt and a Washington tradition of preaching intergovernmental cooperation while practicing every-government-for-itself. After October, 80 percent of America's small towns - too small to mount expensive lobbying campaigns for grants from the huge Federal bureaucracies - will be disfranchised in terms of direct financial aid from the Government.
For a Federal program, the idea of revenue-sharing was simple. The Government collects taxes, at which it is very effective, and shares a small part of them with state and local governments, which are more effective at identifying day-to-day needs. The corollary was that elected officials, not appointed bureaucrats, should decide where tax money ought to be spent.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/10/opinion/federal-revenue-sharing-born-1972-died-1986-rip.html
Of course at this point, in order to even have any "revenue sharing", we will need "revenue" and that pretty much got torpedoed, much to the delight of the wealthy.
Apologize for the rank cynicism but it is time to go beyond slogans and start realistically getting into the sausage-making of creating legislation to bring about these "ideas". That never seems to happen and that is why one ends up stumbling through the actual markup and implementation process because "high ideals" could not be translated into pragmatic steps to institute transactional changes. If anything, some folks need to start working on revising the old McCain-Feingold law that got thrown out and start doing some election reform. Then work on Citizen's United and get rid of this idea that "corporations are people", and then maybe some of these other things can even have a fat chance in hell of getting through Congress.
I agree words aren't enough,but avoiding the words, not promoting the grandest solutions will certainly not achieve those solutions, and may get us nothing at all. You have to advocate for them. You have to vote for politicians who say they are going to fight for them, as a better choice than those that say they are going to find some middle ground. they've already ceded. They've already given the other side nothing they need to compromise for. They've set our best case and the other side's worst case at the exact same place. Why would the GOP ever come to the table?
A certain former President did just what you indicate above - "promote the grandest solutions". And as he found out, while I watched dozens of hearings over a year, in multiple committees and in both chambers of Congress, "grand solutions" can be nothing more than pipe dreams if you don't understand how the federal government and the legislative process works.
One of the things I found fascinating about Barack Obama that is rarely brought up was his legislative record in Illinois as a State Senator and what his focus was in terms of crafting legislation. And I stumbled upon this, which was illuminating and was probably why her persisted (this was from the NYT) -
At a number almost twice that of the next highest topic for legislation, "healthcare" was his number one focus.
Yet when it came to to make it so, for months, I heard the idiotic M$M continue to parrot the term "The bill", as if something they heard being discussed & debated was the "final" bill, yet was merely one version out of a single committee's markup, from just one of the congressional chambers. There was pure ignorance about the fact that when all is said and done, BOTH chambers of Congress MUST PASS THE IDENTICAL VERSION of a bill.
Perhaps I should put it in simpler terms. What Democrats (progressives, liberals) need is the "liberal" equivalent of ALEC. WE NEED ready-to-go legislation written up and made available for tweaking. No more "grandiose ideas". Get some damn marked up legislation ready to go and then once we take back one or more chambers, WE control the chairs and WE control the schedule and WE can hold the hearings to tweak that already-made legislation and move it out.
There is a sad lack of literacy in civics among not just the media but even astute followers of politics. There is no understanding of the (oft-arcane) Senate rules. And despite the wonderful School House Rock animated short on how a bill becomes a law, most folks have no clue. ZERO. I have seen it right here on DU. Pure unadulterated ignorance. And so much fighting has basically been due to that lack of knowledge because something was "compromised" or didn't get done "fast enough" and other nonsense.
Maybe there needs to be a special group/forum on DU that teaches these things.
As to the question of where new revenue into black communities would come from, the money would come into the same hands of the people of color who do hold minimum wage jobs today. A whole lot do. It will come into the hands of the people who hold higher than mimimum wage jobs who also exist across demographics, who's salaries will have to raise in response as a means of luring workers to these jobs over the baseline value of work. We both agree, this doesn't solve everything...it is but a start, but there's no way it does no work whatsoever.
Unfortunately you are making an assumption - "who's salaries will have to raise in response as a means of luring workers to these jobs". That particular common sense mode of operation has been thwarted thanks to things like H-2B visas, where non U.S. citizens are brought in to "fill those jobs". And then when this happens, it does nothing but play into the "immigration is bad" talking point, pitting American workers against foreign ones. And as long as you have countries around the world paying their workers a pittance, then they become a pool of workforce for the greedy of this country, merely by paying them barely more than minimum wage (which is a giant leap for them).
In a "normal" world, what you wrote about the idea of attracting a better labor force by increasing pay, makes every bit of good sense. Yet the mentality of something financial "making sense", was been jettisoned by Raygun and his ilk almost 40 years ago, to be replaced with "profits above all else".
I totally agree with you that the commons should be rehabilitated, but giving states and localities money when so many are capable(particularly in republican run areas) of selling that commons out for a pittance will certainly not help everywhere, although, yes, it should be part of the picture. And we certainly shouldn't be letting any of our communal property get sold out from under us, either to our own corporations or to foreign entities. That should almost never happen, and yet it happens with ease.
My mother always used to say - "America is a "capitalist" country and "capital" equals "money". And I think the sooner we get that, the sooner we can find a solution around it because it ain't changing any time soon.
I just think we should settle on an increasingly progressive tax bracket. That is simply a recognition that everything can't be accounted for and some people will figure out how to beat the system, but that that win shouldn't come at the cost of everybody else. This, coupled with a BIG would keep the water cycle of wealth more balanced. Always rains down to the earth...always evaporates upwards.
It will always be a struggle dealing with "taxes" and the tax rates. However they have been changed before (over and over) and can be changed again. And that should definitely be on the agenda.
I won't spell it out as I'm not going to go on a link hunt right now but I will say this: he used to make the same lousy cracks about Bill Clinton and for a time I believed him, because he was echoing writers like Alex Cockburn and the late Christopher Hitchens who I thought were pretty smart. When the same crowd repeated the act with John Kerry I began to wonder about them and after 2008 I got completely sick of the whole lot and lost confidence in their bona fides, which is a polite way of saying something we're not supposed to say here.
p.s. K'n'R
