This Appalachia Life: My Mother Wasn't Trash

[WellDarn]

47. Let's look at just a small sample

How many areas are out there where our policy is good, even great, but our messaging is "white?"

Who do you think we were trying to attract with (admittedly) inspiring stories about high achieving DREAMERS? Was it the undocumented Spanish-speaking immigrant toiling in a field, or cleaning a home, or hanging sheetrock? Or was it the white suburbanite who looks down their nose at the guy helping to build the new addition on their home who can't speak English, who has a DUI conviction or a DV restraining order and who SOME PEOPLE feel we have to convince suburbanites we AREN'T standing behind. Good policy, white messaging.

How about gun control? Are we trying to attract people like me who know that they are a target and that the police aren't there to protect them but instead to join the firing line? Or are we trying to attract suburbanites for whom mass shooting and accidental death simply because of the proliferation of guns are one of the few dangers they face in their protected lives? Good policy, white messaging.

How about the (admittedly) inspiring Gold Star families? Are we trying to appeal to the patriotism of white suburbanites? Or, are we trying to tell the millions of Muslim families this country who don't support our military actions that we stand behind THEM too? Good policy on immigration, tolerance, etc., but once again, white messaging.

And then how about the areas where we lagged behind what I consider Democratic Party values even as a matter of policy until white suburbanites give (or gave) their approval? How many years did it take to back off of racist drug laws? When are we going to federally prosecute blue on black crime and/or conspiracies to conceal blue on black crime such as happened in Ferguson? When are we going to stop supporting/enforcing the death penalty? When did we finally stand up for the rights of our LGBTQ community? When are we going to stop vilainizing poverty? When will we have a NATIONAL movement to emulate and then expand what Terry McAuliffe did in Virginia by restoring the voting rights of felons? Only when white suburban America say/said it is either okay or that it is no longer an issue that mattered to them.

I am a black man and I have voted for every Democrat on every ballot in every election in which I was legally permitted to participate because I know that in a binary system every Democrat is better than every Republican. But don't tell me that the people who won't stand up for me, or even for someone like Willie Horton for that matter, is targeting my vote.