If Sanders' attempt to win black voters is a redux of 2016, it won't be enough [View all]

[brooklynite]

The Guardian

Sanders’ trouble with black voters is well-chronicled. Hillary Clinton bested Sanders by wide margins, getting more than 70% of the black vote in the 2016 Democratic primaries. With black voters comprising 27% of the primary electorate, candidates will need to perform well with them if they have any hopes of becoming the nominee. The Sanders’ team came to this stark realization following 2016’s crushing loss in South Carolina, writing in a campaign memo: “The margin by which we lost the African American vote has got to be – at the very least – cut in half or there simply is no path to victory.”

Part of the critique against Sanders is that his class-based economic policies crowd the distinct experiences of black Americans out of his agenda. The universal programs he supports – $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, tuition-free college – don’t address head-on the stubborn racial disparities that persist even among similarly situated black and white Americans. Certainly, racial and economic inequalities are entangled, but race remains the primary determinant of one’s socioeconomic status.

In Chicago, Sanders acknowledged this inconvenient truth. “Our campaign is about fundamentally ending the disparity of wealth and power in this country,” he told the audience of more than 12,000. “But as we do that, we must speak out against the disparity within the disparity.” He then listed a number of troublesome racial disparities concerning the wealth gap, infant and maternal mortality rates, health outcomes and the criminal justice system.

And then he moved on.

There was no mention of targeted programs to reduce those disparities – only a return to his standard stump speech on the dangers of rampant economic inequality. Just before wrapping up, he vowed to “address the racial disparities of wealth and income” and “root out institutional racism”. But his preferred means to accomplishing these ends still appear to center on colorblind policies.