American Populism and White Privilege
Full disclosure: I intend to vote for Bernie Sanders in the California Democratic primary, although it’s likely the nomination will be locked down by then and it won’t really matter.
But it’s been clear right from the start that the Sanders campaign has had extreme difficulty convincing people of color to vote for Sanders.
I think part of the reason is the hyperfocus on economic inequality being the cause of all of our woes.
In this era where people of color are being wantonly killed by law enforcement and the Obama’s adminstration has ramped up deportations, all the while Donald Trump is running a very popular campaign based on anti-immigrant sentiment and white supremacist sympathy, the idea that “racism isn’t the real problem, economic inequality is the root cause.” is probably not going to weaken Clinton’s firewall.
Sanders supporters are bewildered about this considering that former president Bill Clinton’s administration did wreak significant havoc on communities of color, but the fact is that a lot of people of color feel like the Democratic Party is the only possible safe harbor, and there’s no advantage in backing a more radical economic agenda that completely ignores the problem of race.
Add to it the toxic, paranoid backlash by Sanders supporters against prominent Civil Rights activists who support Clinton like Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Dolores Huerta, and Sanders has an uphill battle ahead.
Bernie Sanders and the Depressing Reality of Populism • 2016 Feb 22 • Charles P. Pierce • Esquire
Those who ‘Feel the Bern’ invariably insist that those who don’t are either dumb, don’t understand their own political needs or what and who will truly help them. To some degree, that’s normal when people get really passionate about a candidate or a campaign. But given the professed progressive leanings of those in the Sanders camp and what’s widely known about the group’s near-racial homogeneity, it’s a response that seems like a rather large and telling contradiction. It is a response that seems devoid of any recognition that patronizing language, paternalistic “guidance” and recriminations are, at the very least, the active ingredients in modern and sometimes subtle forms of bigotry. Besides that, condescension is not often convincing.
Bernie Sanders’s real problem with black and Hispanic voters • 2016 Feb 4 • Janell Ross • Washington Post
Asian-American Organizers Say Their Votes Helped Clinton Secure Nevada Win • 2016 Feb 21 • Emil Guillermo • NBC News