Why "Bernie was arrested in '63" is an inappropriate answer to criticism of his civil rights record

[karynnj]

102. Imagine that Hillary Clinton took a year of attending Wellesley to work to desegregate

Boston. Boston when Hillary was in college in the suburbs, was a very racially segregated city. Areas of Boston like Southie and the ethnic areas of Chicago were intensely racist and poor. Something tells me that this would have been a crowning part of your praise for Clinton - included with her work after law school for Marion Wright Edelman. THAT part of Clinton's biography impressed me - especially coming from where she did - a relatively wealthy Republican suburb northwest of Chicago. Knowing Chicago, Sanders standing up to the Chicago police to work on CPS desegregation does too. (I grew up in NW Indiana about 20 miles from Chicago.)

One error in your post was to equate Sanders' political action to attending a march or protesting. It was a much deeper, longer term commitment. Were you old enough to watch Mayor Daley. who ruled Chicago, at the 1968 convention? While you are correct that no one who was white raced the risk that blacks raced through much of the country. But, Sanders was no rich son of a powerful man. He was the son of a Jewish immigrant who fled anti semitism in Europe, who was smart enough to get a scholarship to the University of Chicago.

I know you have your problems with Sanders. Yet, you minimize this part of his background and then erect a strawman that he wanted praise from blacks for this. In fact, it was never a part of his biography he spoke of often. No one ever said he was a hero of the civil rights movement - many many other people did far more at far greater risk. However, that does not diminish that Sanders really did put himself on the line far more than almost any white politician I have read of. This came out of his Jewish sense of Tikkun Olam.

Your comment on his votes is also weird as you say it does not matter that they were scored by the NAACP as 100% correct --because , you say, - so are almost all Democrats. Why then even bring them up. The problem is that you have written a huge number of threads all trashing Bernie. I get it that you dislike him. However, this is OVERKILL.