Ta-Nehisi Coates: Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

358. I started out as an O'Malley supporter because he was my governor and did some

pretty good things here. Not perfect. But good.

I expected Bernie to be the best candidate, but he has turned me off on this race issue. It is my belief that we must stop running from race. I wanted him to be that candidate because I loathe the Clintons with a passion, but he continues to hide behind class and so-called economic justice. I think his unwillingness to dig deeper may be what's turning me and a lot of black voters off. Many get the sense that he is refusing to grasp that it doesn't matter if there is economic parity among the racial groups, racial discrimination will continue; the mistreatment of people of color continues. I have two advanced degrees, and as a black woman, I can expect to earn--what--65 cents to every dollar, even with my degrees, experiences, and technical skills? I can expect to be followed in stores regardless of what I wear and accosted by police for looking wrong? When these issues are raised to Bernie, he seems to continue to talk about economic issues, as if ignoring the experiences of black people when they confront racism. He continues to assert that with economic justice, the racism would just go away--and that's the problem.

The racism comes first. It's the racism that leads to the economic injustice, not the other way around. It's the hate and feelings of white superiority over those who don't look like you (black, brown, red, yellow) that leads to the implementation of policies and programs that exacerbate economic and structural inequalities. But Bernie seems to not understand this. Or, in my view, he is deliberately dismissing the centrality of race and that is what is turning people off. These are votes that he could have because I do not think that there are a lot of black voters who like Hillary Clinton---they just believe that she's the only one who can beat the Republicans. I believe (and I could be wrong) that many black voters are just convinced that the Clintons are politically powerful; but, this is my view: I don't think black voters necessarily like Hillary Clinton, even if the polls suggest otherwise--I think they believe that she's the only viable candidate that the Democrats can offer.