From what I've been able to gather, these were the major problems Bernie had in obtaining POC votes [View all]

[Ken Burch]

(Just thought I'd put them up here for discussion. We need to learn from this year)

1) He wasn't able, when speaking to AA audiences, to convey a sense of hope and inspiration, to convince them that our revolution would involve and include POC and be relevant to their needs. He conveyed anger, but that audience seemed to take it as though he was angry AT them, rather than at the system that harms all of us;

2) He didn't seem to be able to convince POC that he understood that the effects of institutional racism meant that the programs he advocated would need to do more for those communities than for others. Obviously his programs would have had more effect among POC communities, but he somehow made it read to them as though he was proposing "one size fits all" approaches that regarded racism as a thing of the past;

3) He had trouble conveying that he understood(as I am convinced he truly does understand)that the struggles against group oppression were separate(though clearly related)to the struggle for economic justice. He needed to find the language that conveyed an intersectionality approach to this;

4) He phrased his critique of the shortcomings of the Obama administration on policy and tactics in a way that sounded like(even if it was never meant as) personal disrespect of the president. This may have started the rift the HRC campaign was so effective in exploiting. It's also a major part of the reason(though not the only one) the alliance with Cornel West ended up doing so much damage.

5) At the start of his campaign, he did not make it clear that he supported criminal justice reform and understood what BLM was and is justifiably enraged about on that issue. This was corrected, but by the time it was, the damage was done.

What suggestions does anyone here have about how a future left campaign can avoid these mistakes?