I only get into trouble on DU when I try to get to what's real.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

14. He's got a few now, hopefully he'll get more.

The Black Kos group diary over on Daily Kos had bios on two or three folks inside his campaign who are women of colour. Two AA and a latina, I think it was. But he needs more, and he has to be listening to them. I do think Senator Sanders is certainly better than many of his supporters have turned out to be. He's spent his whole life thinking in terms of economics, though, and so even his view of how to improve the lives of black people is economic-centric. I don't think he's opposed to any form of racial justice that doesn't involve economics, it's just something he hasn't been spending enough time thinking about.

The internet has become a fantastic disruptive technology for putting racial injustice in the faces of white folks who otherwise are 'sheltered' from it in their everyday lives by the racism built into our 'geography' and our media. Unfortunately, I don't think Senator Sanders uses the internet all that much. I suspect most of his net 'presence' is more the result of the work of his staff than the man himself.

In terms of the actions of supporters, I'm not sure how much there is that 'can' be done. While defensiveness is more of a knee-jerk reaction, I don't see how those who didn't 'come around' after the initial surprise are ever really going to change. And those who are STILL trolling Black Twitter people are obviously beyond help in the short term. They'd need to take full semester college classes on current racism, and even then it's a coin flip whether or not they'd change. They're either simply too stupid to see that they're doing major damage to the fragile entrance Sanders has made into the black community, they don't care, or heck, maybe even they're having fun destroying his chances with the black community.

There as article (salon maybe?) that suggested that Bernie might actually be trying to campaign a path that DIDN'T include black voters. That he actually thought he could win back tons of white voters from Republicans and 'didn't need' black people.

I think he CAN win back lots of white voters, but I don't believe he would simply abandon black people. Even if you posit that he himself is covertly bigoted, he simply isn't that poor of a politician. Does he need to be pushed on (non-economic) racial issues? Sure, just like every candidate running. And that will continue to be the case even through his Presidency. Criticism and demands of our politicians only end when they're out of office.