andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
Just realized I need to bookmark the Atlantic.
Here is the great challenge of liberal policy in America: We now know that for every dollar of wealth white families have, black families have a nickel. We know that being middle class does not immunize black families from exploitation in the way that it immunizes white families. We know that black families making $100,000 a year tend to live in the same kind of neighborhoods as white families making $30,000 a year. We know that in a city like Chicago, the wealthiest black neighborhood has an incarceration rate many times worse than the poorest white neighborhood. This is not a class divide, but a racist divide. Mainstream liberal policy proposes to address this divide without actually targeting it, to solve a problem through category error. That a mainstream Democrat like Hillary Clinton embraces mainstream liberal policy is unsurprising. Clinton has no interest in expanding the Overton window. She simply hopes to slide through it.
But I thought #FeelTheBern meant something more than this. I thought that Bernie Sanders, the candidate of single-payer health insurance, of the dissolution of big banks, of free higher education, was interested both in being elected and in advancing the debate beyond his own candidacy....
A Democratic candidate who offers class-based remedies to address racist plunder because that is what is imminently doable, because all we have are bandages, is doing the best he can. A Democratic candidate who claims that such remedies are sufficient, who makes a virtue of bandaging, has forgotten the world that should, and must, be. Effectively he answers the trenchant problem of white supremacy by claiming something something socialism, and then a miracle occurs....
When Sanders dismisses reparations because they are divisive he puts himself in poor company. Divisive is how Joe Lieberman swatted away his interlocutors. Divisive is how the media dismissed the public option. Divisive is what Hillary Clinton is calling Sanderss single-player platform right now.
So divisive was Abraham Lincolns embrace of abolition that it got him shot in the head. So divisive was Lyndon Johnsons embrace of civil rights that it fractured the Democratic Party. So divisive was Ulysses S. Grants defense of black civil rights and war upon the Klan, that American historians spent the better part of a century destroying his reputation. So divisive was Martin Luther King Jr. that his own government bugged him, harassed him, and demonized him until he was dead. And now, in our time, politicians tout their proximity to that same King, and dismiss the completion of his workthe full pursuit of equalityas divisive. The point is not that reparations is not divisive. The point is that anti-racism is always divisive.
My bad. It's honestly hard to tell with these Bernie fans from their ivory towers, who don't operate in the real world.
I don't recall. But like the article above says more eloquently than I can, what's the difference? She's not claiming to be the best thing that can possibly happen to America, while Sanders is. His focus on solely tackling ecobomics and breaking up the banks ignores the real issues in this country.
It was hard picking just a few paragraphs to quote.
I wonder if he has ever even taken the time to look at Bernie's website. Probably too busy.A Democratic candidate who offers class-based remedies to address racist plunder because that is what is imminently doable, because all we have are bandages, is doing the best he can. A Democratic candidate who claims that such remedies are sufficient, who makes a virtue of bandaging, has forgotten the world that should, and must, be. Effectively he answers the trenchant problem of white supremacy by claiming something something socialism, and then a miracle occurs....
Not going to correct him?I wonder if he has ever even taken the time to look at Bernie's website. Probably too busy.
This is an excellent piece that I think succumbs to the same problem I see a lot of people having: thinking that Bernie is genuinely radical (in no small part thanks to the way he explicitly positions himself). He's not. And I'm not saying radical pejoratively here, I think we could do with quite a bit more radical thought right now, including an actual examination of reparations. But Bernie is not a radical who aims to actually alter the relationship between labor and capital, and I think when we stop thinking of him and framing him that way then his stance on reparations feels less "inconsistent"
I don't even know how this whole "helping the lower and middle class means helping black families" meme got started. Was it Bernie who first introduced it?
If you truly want to help black people, Bern, the solution is simple:
1. Start a federal investigation every time a black person is killed by police, regardless of circumstances.
2. End Gerrymandering so black people can have proper representation in government.
3. Stop telling BLM what they need to do, and start listening (to someone other than Killer Mike, preferably).
Who cares about Goldman Sachs and how much they paid Hillary?
I think you're giving Bernie too much credit. Other campaigns might be able to market a certain image, what you're referring to as being dishonest here, so as to capture the anti-establishment fervor in the nation. I'm talking about the likes of Trump or Cruz. They have actual strategic planning. Sanders, on the other hand, seems like he truly believes he's some golden child that can solve all our problems with rainbows. Of course, he only wants to do that using his own personal agenda.So he's dishonest then? He absolutely sells himself as a step in the revolution.
If you can't bother to go there yourself, I'll quote it for you. It might be easier that way. Lets start with Coates' imagination.Not going to correct him?
Sanders’s basic approach is to ameliorate the effects of racism through broad, mostly class-based policies—doubling the minimum wage, offering single-payer health-care, delivering free higher education. This is the same “A rising tide lifts all boats” thinking that has dominated Democratic anti-racist policy for a generation. Sanders proposes to intensify this approach. But Sanders’s actual approach is really no different than President Obama’s. I have repeatedly stated my problem with the “rising tide” philosophy when embraced by Obama and liberals in general. (See here, here, here, and here.) Again, briefly, treating a racist injury solely with class-based remedies is like treating a gun-shot wound solely with bandages. The bandages help, but they will not suffice.
Seems weirdly race specific already? What's happening...We must pursue policies to transform this country into a nation that affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing the five central types of violence waged against black, brown and indigenous Americans: physical, political, legal, economic and environmental.
We are far from eradicating racism in this country. Today in America, if you are black, you can be killed for getting a pack of Skittles during a basketball game. Or murdered in your church while you are praying. This violence fills us with outrage, disgust and a deep, deep sadness. These hateful acts of violence amount to acts of terror. They are perpetrated by extremists who want to intimidate and terrorize black, brown and indigenous people in this country.
Sounds sorta like the Atlantic article?A growing number of communities do not trust the police. Law enforcement officers have become disconnected from the communities they are sworn to protect. Violence and brutality of any kind, particularly at the hands of the police meant to protect and serve our communities, is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. We need a societal transformation to make it clear that black lives matter and racism will not be accepted in a civilized country.
Oh god it keeps happening, why is he still talking about race?In the shameful days of open segregation, literacy laws and poll taxes were used to suppress minority voting. Today, through other laws and actions — such as requiring voters to show photo ID, discriminatory drawing of Congressional districts, restricting same-day registration and early voting and aggressively purging voter rolls — states are taking steps which have a similar effect.
The patterns are unmistakable. 11 percent of eligible voters do not have a photo ID—and they are disproportionately black and Latino. In 2012, African-Americans waited twice as long to vote as whites. Some voters in minority precincts waited upwards of six or seven hours to cast a ballot. Meanwhile, thirteen percent of African-American men have lost the right to vote due to felony convictions.
Not even halfway through the page....Millions of lives have been destroyed because people are in jail for nonviolent crimes. For decades, we have been engaged in a failed “War on Drugs” with racially-biased mandatory minimums that punish people of color unfairly.
It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. This must change.
But what King saw in 1968 — and what we all should recognize today — is that it is necessary to try to address the rampant economic inequality while also taking on the issue of societal racism. We must simultaneously address the structural and institutional racism which exists in this country, while at the same time we vigorously attack the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality which is making the very rich much richer while everyone else — especially those in our minority communities – are becoming poorer.
Flint anyone?People of color disproportionately experience a daily assault on their health and environment. Communities of color are the hardest hit by air and water pollution from industrial factories, power plants, incinerators, chemical waste and lead contamination from old pipes and paint. At the same time, they lack access to parks, gardens and other recreational green space.
You should, because the policies that will benefit her donors will be at the expense of the working class & those living in poverty, which will disproportionally effect minorities.
On the subject of reparations; I agree with the overall premise, but the timing of the inquiry seems suspect to me. If this is an issue people care about why has it never came up during political discourse of the last two terms of Obama's Administration? I don't buy the argument I see in this thread that because it has a low probability of being implemented therefore it shouldn't even be MENTIONED? Also how does one determine if X person has an ancestor who was enslaved? Lastly what specifically would the reparation be? The Atlantic article doesn't lay out a policy, instead it just draws an issue with the level of passion one of the democratic candidates is willing to have for a certain subject vs. another.
*Snip*
This is what unhinged feeltheBern types criticize Hillary for though. If he felt Bernie was paying lip service despite his platform he should have written that article, but he's making claims that I think are undeniably strawman arguments, which just muddies the water and I don't think ultimately helps anyone understand what is happening.I think the reason why Bernie's racial injustice platform doesn't get much credence is the circumstances under which it was created: basically, it took BLM rushing his stage multiple times and literally forcing him to acknowledge racial inequality as its own monster, and not just one of the many consequences of economic equality, before he decided to address it on his website. And even now, to this day, it is STILL like pulling teeth to get that man to talk about racial injustice specifically, and not just as a branch of his focus on the economy.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good that he drafted that at all. But considering the circumstances it's not surprising that people don't take it seriously.
If you can't bother to go there yourself, I'll quote it for you. It might be easier that way. Lets start with Coates' imagination.
And then look at Bernie's racial justice page and see if the judgment lines up.
Seems weirdly race specific already? What's happening...
Sounds sorta like the Atlantic article?
Oh god it keeps happening, why is he still talking about race?
Not even halfway through the page....
Flint anyone?
https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/
Have you read the page I linked to? If you have do believe this is an accurate statement?The article doesn't say that Sanders has no racial justice policies. It says that he has mainstream, stopgap racial justice policies despite claiming to be a radical liberal and advancing radical liberal policies in most other areas. Reading that page kind of proves his point. Those are Hillary Clinton's racial justice policies. Which are, you know, the kind of incremental progressive policies you expect an candidate campaigning as an incremental progressive to advance. But they're pretty disappointing as the racial justice policies of the guy who claims to be leading the liberal revolution, because they're not in any sense revolutionary.
Coates said:One does not find anything as damaging as the carceral state in the Sanders platform, but the dissonance between name and action is the same. Sanderss basic approach is to ameliorate the effects of racism through broad, mostly class-based policies
We must demilitarize our police forces so they dont look and act like invading armies.
We must invest in community policing. Only when we get officers into the communities, working within neighborhoods before trouble arises, do we develop the relationships necessary to make our communities safer together. Among other things, that means increasing civilian oversight of police departments.
We must create a police culture that allows for good officers to report the actions of bad officers without fear of retaliation and allows for a department to follow through on such reports.
We need police forces that reflect the diversity of our communities, including in the training academies and leadership.
At the federal level, we need to establish a new model police training program that reorients the way we do law enforcement in this country. With input from a broad segment of the community including activists and leaders from civil rights organizations we will reinvent how we police America.
We need to federally fund and require body cameras for law enforcement officers to make it easier to hold them accountable.
We need to require police departments and states to collect data on all police shootings and deaths that take place while in police custody and make that data public.
We need new rules on the allowable use of force. Police officers need to be trained to de-escalate confrontations and to humanely interact with people who have mental illnesses.
States and localities that make progress in this area should get more federal justice grant money. Those that do not should get their funding slashed.
We need to make sure federal resources are there to crack down on the illegal activities of hate groups.
I love that one of the arguments against reparations towards black and indigenous Americans is that we simply could not afford to pay them what we'd owe. That should really get people thinking, but it doesn't. It sure is some kind of sad commentary on how much the United States was built on the bones of its natives by the backbreaking imported labor of its African slaves, and how for several hundred years those groups (and countless others, ofc) have been denied and oppressed and told to keep quiet when these problems are brought up because there are supposedly more pressing matters and solutions.
Sanders is not a radical liberal wtf, he is a social-democrat/democratic socialist. Very different.
You guys need to read up what socialism is about first and foremost: Class struggle.
Here is the great challenge of liberal policy in America: We now know that for every dollar of wealth white families have, black families have a nickel. We know that being middle class does not immunize black families from exploitation in the way that it immunizes white families. We know that black families making $100,000 a year tend to live in the same kind of neighborhoods as white families making $30,000 a year. We know that in a city like Chicago, the wealthiest black neighborhood has an incarceration rate many times worse than the poorest white neighborhood. This is not a class divide, but a racist divide.
Direct payments don't make sense, but 50 years of no federal taxation would do just fine.
I love that one of the arguments against reparations towards black and indigenous Americans is that we simply could not afford to pay them what we'd owe. That should really get people thinking, but it doesn't.
I guess the counter argument would be, what about all the other people who are at the very bottom of the food chain, who aren't African American? They would love a federal tax holiday too and have a fair share of obstacles even if they do not compare to the suffering of slavery and its horrible legacy.
Direct payments don't make sense, but 50 years of no federal taxation would do just fine.
I guess the counter argument would be, what about all the other people who are at the very bottom of the food chain, who aren't African American? They would love a federal tax holiday too and have a fair share of obstacles even if they do not compare to the suffering of slavery and its horrible legacy.
I am well aware of what socialism is about.
Class in America cannot be understood without reference to race.
I guess I need to quote this again:
If your understanding of class struggle does not include racism as a major -- possibly the primary -- source of class disenfranchisement, then it simply doesn't apply to America.
You answered your own question.
I'm sure somebody's already posted this, but what is Hillary's position? I assume the same.
I think we should start studying what investments we need to make in communities to help individuals and families and communities move forward. And I am absolutely committed to that. There are some good ideas out there. Theres an idea in the Congressional Black Caucus about really targeting federal dollars to communities that have had either disinvestment or or no investment, and have had years of being below the poverty level. Thats the kind of thing Id like us to focus on and really help lift people up.
And that's exactly what we need in a politician who can operate and achieve things within the political game.They basically have the same position, Hillary just spun her answer better.
The call for reparations is an old one, going back decades. This isn't just coming up in response to Bernie. I'm unable to post specific articles right now, so just check the wiki on the subject.
Why you're hearing it so loudly under Bernie is for two reasons: I've said this before, but the black community in this country is on the verge of a civil rights movement that will rival what we saw in the 50's-60's. Not since then has the black movement been so loud and so visible thanks to groups like Black Lives Matter, so expect to see all these issues be pushed to the forefront in a way they haven't been for a long time.
Another reason is Bernie's own doing -- a consequence of him positioning himself as a progressive radical. Well, if he really is that, then you'd think supporting reparations would be right up his alley.
I think the reason why Bernie's racial injustice platform doesn't get much credence is the circumstances under which it was created: basically, it took BLM rushing his stage multiple times and literally forcing him to acknowledge racial inequality as its own monster, and not just one of the many consequences of economic equality, before he decided to address it on his website. And even now, to this day, it is STILL like pulling teeth to get that man to talk about racial injustice specifically, and not just as a branch of his focus on the economy.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good that he drafted that at all. But considering the circumstances it's not surprising that people don't take it seriously.
I guess the counter argument would be, what about all the other people who are at the very bottom of the food chain, who aren't African American? They would love a federal tax holiday too and have a fair share of obstacles even if they do not compare to the suffering of slavery and its horrible legacy.
The answer is: tough shit. White poor do not suffer as minority poor do.
And that's exactly what we need in a politician who can operate and achieve things within the political game.
And that's exactly what we need in a politician who can operate and achieve things within the political game.
Agreed but where do we draw the line? Do the white poor suffer as much as the minority rich? Do we only care about african americans and native americans in this reparation scheme?
Have you read the page I linked to? If you have do believe this is an accurate statement?
If it is accurate? Do you think these policies will have only incremental effects?
I care about solving the problem. We tackle the source by the emancipation of oppressed groups. Emancipation is power. The first part of emancipation is equal rights, education and economic independence.
The black and native American community should be able to demand the historical justice they seek themselves. The white elite should be politically and economically threatened if they don't comply.
This may not be the emotionally most satisfying way of doing things short term but it will give you structural power over how things go in the country long term.
I don't get where your coming from here; is the potential of white people possibly not being included in something that upsetting?
...of course? you want white people to pay reparations to white people?
I don't get where your coming from here; is the potential of white people possibly not being included in something that upsetting?
When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.
When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.
This in itself isn't a meaningful observation. Bernie's position on climate change probably isn't that radical compared to Hillary's, but that in itself doesn't mean he doesn't have radical positions. These discussions also seem pretty narrow in that generally even in his articles "reparations" isn't particularly well defined. Nor is it a guarantee that his suggestions will even work.I think those policies are important and meaningful. But I also think they're mainstream Democratic policy ideas. Like I said, those are all Hillary Clinton's policies. They don't rise to the level of radical racial justice.
Dude, you will never get the recognition without political and economical power. You are arguing against a strategic solution in favor of an impossible scenario (without violence).Black people were "emancipated" a hundred and fifty years go. They've been fighting since then to have that emancipation recognized by the American people.
A politician that offers improved educational and social programs offers nothing to black Americans, because those programs will be created and maintained by white people in such a way as to remove as much as possible any opportunity for black people to benefit, just like every American social program ever created.
Since American class is primarily about race, that means that those programs do nothing to advance the class struggle.
"The case for white reparations"
You must be super bummed about not getting rickets.
When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.
You've got to be fucking kidding me.When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.