If elected President, Bernie Sanders will pursue an economic agenda that should greatly increase the average wealth of Black Americans; in contrast Hillary Clinton's economic policies would have very little impact in this regard.
The current racial wealth gap is staggering. Black Americans on average have one thirteenth of the average accumulated wealth of White Americans. That's right: 1 to 13. (http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/25/news/economy/racial-wealth-gap/) Black American households currently average around $11,000 of accumulated wealth, while White American households are above $140,000. This is, of course, a direct legacy of slavery and Jim Crow; but it's also a circumstance not rectified by Clintonomics, nor by their extension in the Obama years.
Only one strategy has consistently improved this kind of economic disparity between communities in modern market economies: targeted fiscal expenditure plus a more strict regulatory regime (funded by reasonable, but not radical, re-distributive taxation). In other words, Bernie Sanders' platform.
Here are the four key components of Sanders platform as they impact poor, working class, and middle class African-American communities:
1. The national $15/hr living wage. Black workers disproportionately receive substandard wages. Sanders' commitment to a living wage for workers will put more money in Black workers' pockets.
2. Sanders $1,000,000,000,000 targeted national infrastructure program that is estimated to produce 13 million new jobs. African-Americans have a much higher-than-average unemployment rate. So, once again this will produce more money in pockets - and these targeted projects will bring improved infrastructure to poorer communities; many black communities can look forward to better roads and social facilities, making them more attractive for private investment. (And it's even better than this, per targeted employment, as Sanders has partnered with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to author a Youth Jobs Bill.)
3. No more predatory lending. As #1 & #2 deliver more money into working class pockets, it's essential that money remain in those pockets to be spent in the workers' communities and not be stolen away by financial institutions like the super-predatory pay day lenders (which are now often "fronts"/subsidiaries for larger financial institutions) that are often the only way to turn a paycheck into cash in poor black communities. Sanders' proposal, supported by Elizabeth Warren, to turn Post Offices into low-cost check cashing and lending facilities means the money from the new higher wages stays at home!
4. Bernie is committed to re-building community investment institutions. One of the least heralded aspects of Bernie Sanders program is his commitment to Community Banking. Perhaps because Sanders relishes his role as a Jeremiah raging against the powers-that-be, Sanders has not emphasized how he is a great candidate for the aspirational, entrepreneurial crowd. But you only have to look at Burlington Vermont and see that it was transformed in Bernie's tenure as mayor into one of the most friendly cities/towns in America for new businesses; including the small family run service sector businesses that make for vibrant main streets in communities. Bernie did this by making sure investment was available to entrepeneurs. Yes, it may come as a surprise but Bernie Sanders is something of a hero to bankers - the right kind of bankers . The Independent Community Bankers of America have endorsed Sanders legislation to break up the big banks (http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/2015/05/community-bankers-back-bernie-sanders-bill.html) because the legislation is designed to help community banking flourish in the wake of the break-up - and this is important to Sanders, in large part, because he knows that poor and working class communities suffer from banking deserts and therefore cannot build the type of vibrant community economies that will lift these communities up economically.
Hillary, in contrast, doesn't endorse any of these four points: she's for a lower national minimum wage than Sanders (and doesn't even use the term living wage); an infrastructure program one-quarter the size of Sanders (and even that's not a major priority for her); she doesn't endorse the Post Office plan and has expressed only tepid opposition to payday predatory lending (which is aggressively defended by her ally Debbie Wasserman Schultz); and, of course, Hillary is against breaking up the big banks, which is a precondition for community banks returning to prominence.
These four points of Sanders' program function as a package in relation to Black America and the 15 to 1 racial wealth gap. You have an influx of money from two sources (higher wages and more jobs), you eliminate the parasitic financial institutions that would steal this wealth, and you set up responsible financial institutions available to assist the establishment of locally owned businesses that can now be supported by the influx of new money. That is the formula for communities transforming themselves from poor to thriving: working people and entrepreneurs building the middle class. Job creation + living wages + responsible community investment = more job creation = the emergence of a middle class community.
Of course, along with business ownership the other key component to closing the racial wealth gap is home ownership (both of which, importantly, can be passed down for generations). We've all seen how previously devalued properties can suddenly go sky high through gentrification. However, if inner city predominantly black neighborhoods revitalize through the four step program outlined above, they have a brilliant opportunity to hold onto beautiful urban properties as their value increases - a scenario that would greatly assist in closing the racial wealth gap. However, this again will require the type of financial regulations that Clinton's big bank allies will strenuously oppose, but Sanders relishes - making sure that properties remain in the hands of working and middle class households with truly affordable mortgages, and not in the grasp of the big banks.
This is where Sanders openness to reparations, as expressed this week in Philadelphia, is relevant. The above policies should produce a dramatic narrowing of the racial wealth gap; but, of course, nothing short of one-to-one is acceptable. Straight reparation payments without financial regulations that explicitly rein in predatory lending, and without active job creation at a living wage, would only lead to that money flowing straight into the coffers of parasitic lenders - but if those problems are fixed and the groundwork for lifting all of Black America into the middle class is established, but the a racial wealth gap is still evident, then further reparations (or reparation-like programs) would make perfect sense as the money could be expected to stay with the intended beneficiaries. And with that, the terrible legacy of terrible and very real history, the racial wealth gap, could be erased from the present.
None of that is gong to happen under Hillary Clinton. She may have some wonkish language about creating investment opportunities; but in the absence of non-market job growth and significant wage increases and the elimination of predatory lenders, all it amounts to is setting debt traps for prospective entrepreneurs - and the maintenance o the criminal racial wealth gap.
When it comes to righting the wrongs of history perpetrated against Black America, Bernie Sanders is the candidate who can revive the dream of Dr Martin Luther King - from transforming a racist criminal justice system, to directly addressing the prevalence of institutional racism and free-floating bigotry in American society, and to eradicating the racial wealth gap, producing the greatest growth in Black wealth in the history of the country.
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Does it sound too good to be true? It's not. It's basically applying the policies that have worked around the world to close social wealth gaps in the era of modern industrial/technological societies - in this regard it goes along with the free college education, single payer health care, and opposition to usury (credit card rates) that are signature components of Sanders program - i.e. Sanders Social Democratic platform. However, in case it hasn't been stated clearly enough, Sanders also advocates for targeting programs to poor and struggling working class communities (which remain much more prominent in Black America than the general population) - and the above four points are Sanders signature "targeted" components.
It deploys the same logic as the New Deal and post-New Deal programs that were the cornerstones of building America's post-WWII middle class; the greatest and most prosperous in world history (so, yes, these programs do work!). Indeed, Sanders famously endorsed FDR's Second Bill of Rights (which included a job guarantee) in his "Democratic Socialism" speech at Georgetown. Of course, while many Black Americans benefited from these FDR and post-FDR programs, most did not in the same way as White Americans due to entrenched institutional society-wide racism at the time. Of course, racism is alive and well in contemporary America, but not in the manner of the '40s and '50s; rest assured if these programs come to fruition, per the wishes of a President Sanders, there's no way in the age of the internet (dominated as it is by Sanders Reddit Army in allegiance with the likes of Nina Turner, Shawn King, Ben Jealous et al) that even the largest most powerful banks will get away with their playbook of racist shenanigans.
OK, so why do I think Sanders has failed to win over the majority of Black voters to date?
Let me be clear about one thing first, I am a white guy - albeit a white guy whose left politics have been defined my entire life by my solidarity with Black Americans, as I understand that racist exploitation is the "definitional" crime of American society/history (the country's man-made original sin, as it were, along with the genocide of the indigenous people). As such, I have no compulsion to put the onus on Black communities for "failing" to see that Sanders' policies would be more advantageous for Black America writ large. Rather, I accept that the Clinton's have built a relationship with much of the national Black Political Community that resonates to this day. But also, I do feel that Sanders (who I do believe has now established himself as a truly great historic figure, so don't jump on me for being too critical of Bernie) could've done a better job presenting himself and his policies to the Black community - not the least, by framing his economic policies in the manner I have done so above. Would it have helped in the Southeastern states? Who knows? That will always be a matter for speculation, given the strength of Hillary's campaign there.
Alas, none of that changes what, as a student of history I know to be true: that Hillary Clinton will be more of the (inadequate) same; while Bernie Sanders will be a transformative President, much like Barack Obama (though in a different, more-policy focused way), for Black America.
The proverbial ball (of history) is in your court New York. Choose the guy from Brooklyn and you'll slam home a winner!