I’ve been hearing and reading quite a bit in many forums and in conversations with people on why Black voters — especially Southern Black voters — have such an affinity for Hillary Clinton. In a recent diary posted here, I offered this response (with a few edits I have made to expand on thoughts in my original post):
Why are we (Black people) OK with holding Bernie Sanders to a standard that we didn’t hold Barack Obama to? I don’t understand that. Obama didn't make any of the issues we hold over Sanders’ head — which are all valid and important — major issues in his campaign, in his Presidency, in his policies. Many of the same Black people who completely castigated Cornel West and Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson and other Black public figures who made that point — legitimately made that point — several times during his Presidency are some of the same people saying that Bernie Sanders isn’t addressing any of these issues sufficiently enough for them to even consider him. This makes no sense to me.
We want Bernie Sanders to make specific overtures to different groups of African Americans, but we mumbled under our breath when Obama told a graduating class of Morehouse Men that they should be careful not to ruin their lives making babies they couldn’t take care of (they were graduating from MOREHOUSE — they had already done everything that they were told they should do right). He told voters in Harlem to be better fathers to their children and be present in their lives, while he discussed actual voter issues to other audiences in other stump speeches. When Black people like West and Smiley pointed out the tone-deafness of Obama, the Black community pretty much told them to shut the hell up and took their Black Cards. But Sanders has to modulate his message to Black voters who choose name recognition over history, and history that wasn’t even 30 or 40 or 50 years ago?
At the risk of drawing a lot of ire in here, I think these things are just as true as some of the points discussed in the diary:
- If Black people are citing the fact that Sanders represents the “lily-white” state of Vermont as an issue, I don’t know how we reconcile our support of Clinton who lives in the “lily-white” town of Chappequa, NY, and has since the end of the Clinton presidency. The office in Harlem was a purely political move, and a shrewd one. Furthermore, if it is Black people’s assertion that Sanders doesn’t identify with Black issues simply because the demographics of the state he represents is too White, then explain how a candidate who represents one of the Whitest states in the country managed to get a Black man — Jesse Jackson — to WIN that state in Jackson’s presidential bid. It makes no sense that older Black people dismiss this, unless they just do not know it. And that is where the next point comes into play.
- It’s true, 20% of Twitter users are Black, but they are also largely younger. Most older African Americans aren’t on Twitter like that, or Facebook, for that matter. Most Black people my age (48) and older still get their news the old-fashioned way — the television, the radio and their pastor. And we know that two of those outlets are owned and controlled by corporations who are decidedly biased in ensuring a political outcome that continues to favor them. We know that there is an active and intentional media blackout of Bernie Sanders coverage. And as far as pastors are concerned...that's a whole diary in itself.
- The point about confrontational and organizational activists raised in the original diary is also a generational issue. Most Black people who are older trust older, organizational activists more, so there is more support for the Sharptons and Jacksons and members of the CBC among the 50 and older crowd. Younger African Americans, on the other hand, tend not to trust them as much, precisely BECAUSE they are no longer confrontational. In trading confrontational activism for organizational activism, a lot of younger African Americans do not believe the “old guard” has actually accomplished anything other than getting rich off their compromise with the system. And they point to the persistent problems African Americans face as evidence.
- The fact that some African Americans have an issue with Black Lives Matter, and are also concerned about police abuse for different reasons than other African Americans, is both a class issue and a generational issue. Some African Americans who are middle class, who believe they have “made it,” sometimes do not look favorably upon, or even sympathetically toward, poor Blacks who haven’t been able to escape the trap of poverty, poor quality education, poor access to opportunities, and the resulting poor prospects for a decent life. And some older African Americans also still cling to the very destructive “Respectability Doctrine;” the belief that if we present ourselves in an acceptable manner to society, then society will respect us more and treat us better; so they do not view the struggles of poor Blacks as “their” problem, or at least a problem they should focus significant attention or effort on; because some of them believe those folks don’t want to help themselves. That’s right — some Black people who have more money than poor Black people actually look down on their own people. Exactly like the system tells them to. This can especially be seen in some (not all) Black churches, where you can hear in a sermon on any Sunday things like, “God helps those who help themselves (which is not anywhere in the actual Bible, by the way),” “If Black lives really mattered, then we would stop killing each other” (something like that is actually on a banner on a church not far from where I live in SE Washington, DC), or “We can’t expect other people to care about Black lives, when we don’t.” So the fact that some Black people have a problem with Killer Mike as a representative of Sanders, or any member of BLM, isn’t a Sanders problem, in my opinion. Especially since he now has the support of other Black public figures who are not at all anything like the very astute and enthusiastic rapper (I didn’t know who Killer Mike was before he started stumping for Sanders). Seriously, who is more “respectable” than Harry Belafonte? Danny Glover? And how do we explain our alleged problems with Sander’s representatives, when he has had Nina Turner on his team since before the first BLM interaction in Seattle (he just hadn’t announced her yet, but she was already a part of his team), who is a former Senator herself and formerly supported Clinton?
- We don’t tell the whole truth about the Clinton years when we talk about them. Let’s be honest, we just don’t. And some of the aforementioned points are some of the reasons why. But some of this can attributed to the fact that, like most Americans in general, Black people are no more well-versed in the details of politics than anyone else, and it is absolutely to our detriment. For example, when discussing the crime bill, too many Black people don't talk about the fact that what we wanted was help with VIOLENT criminals, not low-level, non-violent kids — especially those of us who lived in the cities where most of the crime was happening — AND we wanted drug treatment, rehabilitation for returning citizens and funding for community programs and education AND EXPANDED COMMUNITY POLICING, not just more cops with a military arsenal. And we wanted this because crack, and the social problems that were created that caused the perfect storm that turned it into the nightmare that it was, WAS THE GOVERNMENT’S FAULT. Those of us in the besieged cities knew that the CIA involvement in flooding our neighborhoods with crack; the government’s budget cuts that forced federally-funded mental institutions to instantly create a homeless population in our cities where we formerly had none; and the federal and state budget cuts to social programs like summer jobs and after-school activities all worked together to create a perfect storm that we knew was the government’s responsibility to fix. THAT is what we were demanding. But that is absolutely not what we got. Instead, what gets repeated is the very intentionally sanitized narrative of, “Black people wanted the crime bill, too.” And conversely, the only information about Sanders that is repeated is that he voted for the crime bill, but not why he did (amendments that were added to the bill that were critical for things like resources for domestic violence assistance, which were added to get politicians who hadn’t voted for the previous versions of the bill to vote for it, because those amendments weren’t going to be passed any other way), or that he didn’t vote for the previous versions of it, or that he spoke out fiercely on the House floor against it, and that he and other legislators tried repeatedly to amend portions of it. Surprisingly, not too many of these same people will bring up Hillary Clinton’s racially-coded campaign against Barack Obama in 2008. As much as I realize how complex the reality of the voting preferences of some African Americans is, even I don’t understand this.
I can understand (barely) not wanting to “litigate” some things like the 94 Crime Bill again, but I also know that too many of us are just repeating what we hear in the media, are not having critical conversations about actual history, and history that wasn’t even that long ago. I can blame the media blackout for some of that, ESPECIALLY in the South. But holding Bernie Sanders or his supporters responsible for not accounting for that in his messaging? I don't know about that.
Can Bernie Sanders finesse his message better, do more to proactively reach out to Black voters, such as appear on Black radio shows, news shows (Tavis Smiley has a show; he needs to reschedule with Roland Martin’s show), have more speeches at HBCU’s and in Black communities? Of course he can and of course he should. And his campaigners should really approach voters by ASKING THEM what their core concerns are, THEN giving them Bernie’s answers to those concerns.
But I am not entirely comfortable with making Sanders’ messaging the main reason some Black voters aren't flocking to him in droves. Some of this is exactly what we’ve been conditioned to do, how we’ve been conditioned to think, in a country that was built off of keeping us marginalized. We’ve been had, we’re being had, and some of us are not even bothering to believe it, even when we're told we are.
I don't know how much combating you can do of that for those who don't want to see it. As for me, Sanders 2016. We are all doomed otherwise.