Also, I think it’s irksome that Sanders says this about black candidates, but doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the very same could be said about Jewish candidates. And yet do we ever see him say anything like people who are uncomfortable voting for Jewish folks aren’t necessarily anti-semitic? Maybe I’ve missed it.
No, I haven’t heard it either - that’s fair criticism as far as I’m concerned.
I hope this isn’t the end of Bernie the grass roots organizer, but I’ve never been completely comfortable with Bernie, candidate for President. I don’t think he could be an effective executive. The job doesn’t match his skill set - yes he’s far better than the disaster we have now, but let’s not lower our standards here.
I’ve seen literally no one suggest that Bernie himself is a racist. People are upset about him using placative language to excuse racist behavior.
I agree with this. To my mind it would be a mistake to treat Sanders with kid gloves here: his choice of phrasing was really problematic. And his clarification to NPR did little to change my opinion — he essentially just repudiated what he said without addressing it.
He won’t win in 2020 and there’s no use relitigating 2016, so I don’t see how a knee jerk defense does any service to anyone.
Good point!
Which specific high-profile Jewish candidates do you have in mind, that narrowly lost their election after a high-profile virulently antisemitic campaign against them, and that he was asked about?
Part - a large, part, I think - of Sander’s success in the primaries was that he was the only viable alternative to Clinton. If you were a Democrat, and saw that Hillary was a poisoned candidate, you didn’t really have any options. I would have voted for a more mainstream Democrat but I voted for Bernie because I understood the depth of even moderate Republican hatred for her.
So I don’t believe Bernie had a real shot this time. But he’s done. Because honestly, if you’re uncomfortable voting for a candidate because of their skin color - no matter what all the reasons are that you’ve been made uncomfortable - surprise! You’re a racist. There’s no such thing as a “not a racist who has second thoughts about voting for a black person.”
Yes. And it feeds into the fear that some people of color have that when push comes to shove that their interests will be thrown to the wolves in order to appeal to another group.
I seem to recall a Jewish candidate losing a major primary in 2016…do you think he would agree with the idea that people uncomfortable electing him because of his ethnic/religious background weren’t necessarily anti-Semitic? I don’t think he would, as the absurdity would be clearer to him given its personal relevance.
I’m not sure why you think the part in bold mitigates anything. It actually amplifies the wrongness of what he said. If a campaign exploits racism and the white electorate acts on that racism instead of soundly rejecting it, then it’s disingenuous to say white voters aren’t necessarily racist. If his point is that they aren’t necessarily grand wizards in the KKK, well so what; we should all know by now that racism isn’t restricted to just those with white robes in their closets. So if he thinks he’s saying something profound and helpful, then it just shows he’s probably not in touch enough with the times to be leading the kind of paradigm shifts needed right now.
Maybe. As I said in post 15, I think he’s wrong. But I also think that the point he was trying to make–that the schlubs who are manipulated by racism aren’t the enemy in the way that the purveyors of racism are–is a valid point.
And if he made the point about the purveyors/consumers of misogyny, or antisemitism, or anti-atheism, or anti-Islam, I’d agree with that point, although, again, poorly made.
I think about it in terms that I learned from a labor organizing conference. There are people who have influence and people who don’t, and people who influence folks in good directions and those who influence folks in poor directions. Then there are those who mostly follow.
I’m gonna be super simplistic here in order to avoid a shit-ton of weasel words; I’ll talk now about Good Leaders and Shitty Leaders and Good Schlubs and Shitty Schlubs and Followers.
When there’s a Good Leaders, that’s great: just try to get them more Followers.
When there’s a Good Schlub, you try to move them into a position of Leadership, so they can start getting Followers.
When there’s a Shitty Schlub, that’s great. Keep them from getting Followers.
When there’s a Shitty Leader, you try to transfer their Followers to a Good Leader.
(The organizer explained it all much more eloquently; forgive me for my sloppiness)
As I understand Sanders’s point, he was suggesting that we’re looking at a situation of Shitty Leaders, and instead focusing on their Followers. Sanders would rather we focus on the Shitty Leaders and try to diminish their influence, so that we can transfer their Followers to Good Leaders.
You can’t do taht by attacking the followers, though. On the contrary, attacking the followers at the same time you attack the Shitty Leaders just binds the followers more tightly to those leaders, a counterproductive strategy.
I think that this work–of trying to pry the schlubby shitty white racist masses away from their Shitty Racist Leaders, and gently move them into following Better Leaders–is some of the main work that white folks need to be engaged in. We need to be paying attention to this, and we need to prioritize the end (of getting white folks to follow less racist leaders and to spend more time listening to anti-racist leaders) over the satisfaction of telling those followers what scumbags they are.
If you’d like to point out the cynicism of the language I’m using, about Leaders and Followers and Schlubs, be my guest. I’m at the point where cynicism and pragmatism are looking pretty similar these days.
I don’t see him making this point anywhere. Not in his original statement and not in the article you cited. So I suspect you might be imputing deeper meaning to his remarks than what is supportable.
That said, I have to say it’s mind numbingly frustrating to see strong black Democratic candidates fighting against what almost seems like 1960’s-style racism and losing elections by the skin of their teeth, only to then see white progressives sitting off somewhere on the sidelines, tut-tuting us not to call the poor ole “schlubs” who voted against these black candidates “enemies of the people”. It’s like, can we not do this shit again please?
First of all, why do we need to persist in talking about these people with coddling language? Why are they “schlubs” rather than people who have simply made the decision to vote for the party they think promotes their own (racist) interests? We should really stop talking about these voters as if they are impressionable children who have been led astray by a manipulative machine.
Again, not seeing where you’ve gotten any of this from what has been cited. But I’ll engage it anyway.
It’s not an either/or thing. Republican officials didn’t invent racism and then foist it on an ideologically pristine public; rather, the party harnesses the racism that has always existed in this country and uses it to attract voters. Politicians only do what is going to get them elected, and if you’re a Republican politician trying to get elected in certain parts of the country, you have an incentive to be every bit as racist as the constituents you’re trying to court. To attribute all of what we see to “Shitty Leaders” is to ignore that our elected officials aren’t really leaders in the true sense of the word. They are more like mirrors.
Rather than “attacking” anything or anybody, I think we first need to get on the same page as to what is actually happening. It’s not big meanies conning people into believing scary things about black people. What’s happening is simply a continuation of the same problem we’ve been combating since the 1400’s. Same thing, different day, just with more technology.
Why is understanding this important? Because if someone like Bernie is going to try to get a unified coalition behind him, he has to be able to speak about racism in a way that clicks with the people who are actually victims of it. He doesn’t have to brand people as racist to do this, either.
I agree with this, and don’t mean to suggest it’s either/or. I’m talking here about strategy, and I think that enticing some of these folks away from racism may be effective. But I’m not married to that belief.
LHOD, does your complaint also apply to Ava DuVernay? :dubious:
Anyway, glad to be back in the Elections forum after my two year hiatus (with one blip a few months ago) now that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I will be back Monday (I try to stay off social media, email, and message boards on weekends).
This is not a good look. Bernie has consistently talked poorly about identity politics…except when it comes to white working class which sure as hell sounds like an identity to me. However, just like this time, Bernie acts like white is the default.
Am I saying Bernie is a racist? Well…let’s just say he is blind to his weakness in this area and way too forgiving of the racism in others.
Poor phrasing and sycophants having to come out and explain what he /really/ meant is something that happens with Trump all the time and the same with Bernie. Maybe that is something to consider before the hysterical defenses.
This might be going a bit far. I believe Bernie has a very paternalistic view about other races in that if everyone would just accept his way of doing things (economically), race will just disappear. The rising boat fallacy is offensive since time and again it’s been shown whites will make damn sure that their boats are the only ones to rise or to rise higher. He downplays racism in ways that gives POWER to racists.
Maybe Bernie does have a paternalistic view toward other races, but I don’t really sense that.
I agree absolutely that he’s got some blind spots and has been tone deaf to the concerns and viewpoints of black Americans. Still, I don’t think Bernie’s as obnoxious as some of his supporters, some of whom condescendingly suggest that minorities who don’t feel the Bern are ignorantly voting against their own interests.
What’s interesting is that when you point out to Bernie’s supporters that Hillary beat Bernie Sanders in the primary, they’ll inevitably respond by claiming that the Democratic party stacked the deck - completely ignoring the fact that Clinton won major primaries, often by significant margins, because she dominated the African American vote. They don’t want to acknowledge that Sanders did poorly with African Americans, and more importantly, refuse to understand why.
I don’t think Sanders has negative views toward minorities though, and I can’t say I disagree that progressives (the Democratic party) would do well to focus more on economic issues that necessarily impact everyone regardless of race. I think what he’s trying to say is that if we offer a platform with some important key bullet points of tangible programs and initiatives, then that’s something that can build a coalition that cuts across demographic lines. I think that’s been his message all along, and I don’t disagree with it. But he sometimes makes that case clumsily when speaking to minority audiences or when speaking about the welfare of minority communities.
FWIW, #notallSanderssupporters. I think Clinton won the race fair and square, and whatever shenanigans her allies engaged in are pretty well balanced out by the inherent inequities in the caucuses that Sanders did better in.
As for Helen, I’m not particularly interested in responses that call me a sycophant or hysterical, so you do you.
edit: I’m being slowly won over to the idea that what I see as his essential idea may not be all that strong, either. Some of y’all are persuasive.
Did you read your initial reply? Because…it came off as kinda overly defensive and that’s putting it mildly.
I apologize if it came off as calling you a sycophant, however the parallel is hard to ignore. Not with you specifically, but with the desire to give depth to comments and read into them things that aren’t there because you (general you) want them to be.
And yes, I will continue to “do me”. Thank you.
I really don’t think of Sanders as a racist. Certainly he’s a lot less racist than your typical 77-year-old white guy (yes, I realize that isn’t saying much). And I think he’d be (more or less properly) appalled at the idea that he is personally the kind of guy who discriminates based on race. I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
But I think there’s no question that Sanders’s understanding of race in America is very, very shaky. On a number of occasions during the 2016 primary campaign he said and did things that suggested that on a very basic level he doesn’t “get” what it’s like to be black in America. Some of those things have been mentioned in this thread… I do think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he represents what amounts to no black people–I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but I live in a small Northeastern city that has a population of 30,000, and my city has more than twice as many African Americans as the entire state of Vermont.
Whatever the specifics, he has not connected with African American voters–he got just under a quarter of black votes in 2016. Since IIRC Sanders and Clinton essentially split the white vote, Sanders’s inability to attract black voters is a large part of what doomed his campaign.
All of which is to say that when you are a white guy and you know that black voters aren’t thrilled with you, it seems like it would be a Really Good Idea to avoid ticking them off any further than you already have. And defining for black people what is and what is not racism seems like something any white politician absolutely should not get into, but especially not this one. I have no idea what the senator was or wasn’t trying to say with this remark, but it really doesn’t matter. He can’t keep doing this kind of thing if he wants the nomination.
[QUOTE=Ulf the Unwashed;21316211On a number of occasions during the 2016 primary campaign he said and did things that suggested that on a very basic level he doesn’t “get” what it’s like to be black in America. [/QUOTE]
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I don’t get how it is to be black in America either, and I’m a lot younger than Bernie Sanders. I suspect that nobody knows what it’s like to be black in America without you know, actually being black.
I think what Bernie was trying to say was essentially what I said earlier- when candidates make things about race, things become weird; it quits being about issues, and about race, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that / gullible.
He’s shooting straight; people need to accept it at face value and not get all bent out of shape about it I believe.