African American
In reply to the discussion: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bernie Sanders, and Reparations [View all]jonestonesusa
(880 posts)for a couple of reasons. If health care and college education were available to all, black people would also benefit from them. Also, plenty of white people are against these ideas, so to say that they're cherry picked to be "white friendly" doesn't stand up. You and Coates are doing a lot of either-or racial framing, based on a single response from Sanders on a single issue (reparations). I would agree that there's racism in the Democratic socialist left - racism is systematic, embedded in the process of socialization. No one is exempt.
I've said this in another part of this thread, but I don't think that Coates' main point is the slightest bit hard to get. I would even expand it to say that all politicians and all people, not just Sanders, should be challenged on their ideas and policies and how they would impact the collective lives of black people. I just don't agree with Coates' overly simplistic premise that: opposition to reparations by a white socialist = hypocrisy, peculiar, etc. It's not peculiar at all to me, or surprising, since it's the same answer that most white and black politicians would all give (President Obama included). I don't find Sanders' answer to be that troubling because, while I support reparations (particularly the right to sue for damages that are clearly demonstrable along with class-action styled compensation), I don't think reparations are a singular answer to white supremacy, racial inequality, etc., just as it hasn't been for indigenous people, or Japanese-Americans.
Maybe this situation could be read as an opportunity for dialogue among political viewpoints that, in the end, will need to find common ground if we're going to make any real progress on the progressive side.