First of all, I have not decided who I will support in the 2016 Democratic Primary.
Second, In the 2008 primary, I was a Hillary Clinton supporter up until she started going around talking about all of these hard-working white folks who were voting for her.
Truthfully, at the level of policy, I didn't see much of a difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008; I simply thought that Hillary was a little more experienced at that level but I was indifferent as to who won the nomination.
As a person and as a Senator, I like Bernie Sanders.
But on some recent threads, I don't think that some Bernie Sanders supporters here at The Great Orange Satan are doing Bernie Sanders any favors.
Indeed, some Bernie Sanders supporters have out and out resorted to racism and insulting the black community.
Exhibit A
Hillary--let's be clear where this comes from--wants to be sure the AA community, which loves the Clintons--who support those exploiting and marginalizing or that community, including the "thug" slurs--does not waver in its worship of the her, lest she lose more than the few votes there she has already lost.
Really?
You mean to tell me for the 25 years that I have lived in Chicago (leaving aside a year and a half stint in Boston) that all I had to do was to ride the Red Line south past Cermak/22nd ask one of the train "vendors" for some Hillary Clinton Holy Water along with my socks and incense? Who knew?
First of all, say what you will about Bill and Hillary Clinton, as Democrats who have been on the national stage for about as long as I've lived in Chicago, they have worked to build a network of support within the black community for DECADES.
Bernie Sanders has done nothing of the kind on anything near the scale that the Clintons have done.
As a Mayor, Congressman, and senator in one of the whitest of the 50 states, Bernie Sanders never had to work on building a national network of support within the African American community.
I don't fault him for that; such happens to be the nature of where he chose to reside after returning from Israel.
But he will have to work on establishing those networks in order to get the Democratic nomination, I will tell you that.
Hell, Barack Obama had to do it (to a lesser extent) in order to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2008. So why shouldn't Bernie Sanders?
Exhibit B- White folks lecturing black folks about Dr. King.
Don't do that.
Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did by HamdenRice
Never Forget that Martin Luther King Jr. was Hated by White America by chaunceydevega
3. White folks don't need to remind black folks of the race-baiting in Clinton's 2008 campaign (and if you have read this this far, you know that I don't need to be reminded of it). We remember. But I've also said this.
I can explain this (15+ / 0-)
I can't understand why after the racism in her '08 campaign and all her support and active pursuit/implementation of policies that contributed to the oppression of minority populations, anybody who is a minority would support Hillary in this primary season.
1) Obama agreed to have Hillary Clinton serve as his SOS and she agreed to it. Obama chose to put the acrimony and the racism of the 2008 primary season aside and blacks (and other POC) are following his lead.
2) Bill Clinton arguably gave his greatest speech EVER in his endorsement of Obama at the 2012 convention and fired Dems up.
So the Clintons have gone some ways in making amends, possibly for selfish reasons. But they did it.
One other thing: POC can NOT afford to have a Republican win the WH in 2016. POC catch exponentially more hell than white people when a Republican is in the WH.
Hillary Clinton (for the time being, anyway) is really the safer choice for POC IMO.
I would actually love for Sanders to throw some of that 2008 primary shade at Hillary Clinton, to be honest.
by Chitown Kev on Tue Jun 09, 2015 at 03:35:19 PM PDT
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Now, I'm not so presumptious as to speak for the black community but I do talk with a lot of African Americans and that seems to be pretty much the feedback that I've gotten when the "Hillary" conversation has come up.
Dear nice white progressives, it's not for you to decide whether the black community forgives the Clintons w/r/t to the 2008 Democratic primary. That's for the black community to decide.
Now there are many more examples that I could pull from the last 72 hours; comments about "identity politics" and so forth.
We can talk about those in the comments, if you'd like.
I just wanted to put in my $.02 here that quite a few Bernie Sanders supporters are not doing him any favors here.
UPDATE: And here's Exhibit C in the comment section of this very diary.
UPDATE 2: Exhibit D Dear nice white progressives, Please... I'm begging you, don't start pulling out your nice white progressive list of approved negroes to browbeat black people with whom (some of) you disagree.
Exhibit E Accusations of anti-Semitism...Keep going...