Last weekend, Bernie Sanders drew more people to events in Seattle and Portland than all the other candidates in both candidates combined for all events over the same time period. We’re talking more than 25,000 people in Seattle and Portland, and then again a few days later in Los Angeles. You may have heard that at an earlier Portland event, Sanders was unable to speak due to the stage being taken over by a BlackLivesMatter activist. BlackLivesMatter is not really a Bernie Sanders problem, but he does have a major black problem.
Polls from last night indicate Bernie Sanders currently besting Hillary Clinton in the NH primary 44-37, which is outside the margin of error. It’s been my estimation that Bernie can beat Hillary in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and probably will. But because of his “black problem”, he cannot win South Carolina or other states where the black vote is the deciding factor. When I first heard about the BlackLivesMatter dust-up in Portland, I wondered “why Bernie?” It initially seemed that the people who don’t get their heads around the concept are Republicans — so why go after someone like Bernie, who’s got more than 30 years of civil rights legislation under his belt? It turns out there are two reasons. First, one of the women who stormed the stage is a Sarah Palin supporter, and it turns out the real BlackLivesMatter people want her to apologize.
The second reason is that Bernie Sanders does have a black problem, and it’s obvious in a lot of polling. He polls well in both Iowa and New Hampshire relative to favourable/unfavourable. But that is in two lily white states. Overall, among African-Americans, Sanders trails Clinton 64/11. In North Carolina, Clinton pulls 70% of the African-American votes. The list goes on, but Sanders doesn’t do well amoungst black voters.
Why?
The overall reason dates back to the 1970 book by Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. This book was comprised of two essays: Radical Chic being about a dinner hosted by Leonard Bernstein and his wife for the Black Panthers, and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers related stories about San Francisco bureaucrats and their running of poverty programs. If you delve into the issue, you’ll learn a lot about the relationships (especially in New York) between liberal whites (especially Jews) and what were then the radical black organizations. Let’s just say that by the end there was a certain amount of black distrust towards the liberal elite. And an equal amount of unease from Jewish liberals toward the Black Panthers view of Israel. (A good write up on these feelings here.)
Most people are not students of history, even recent history, so Radical Chic may not be upfront in everyone’s mind. But the rift persists, with a certain amount of black distrust and disdain for the white intelligencic elite, especially Jews. And Bernie Sanders, as a white Jewish guy, originally from Brooklyn, who chose to make his life in Vermont is almost instantaneously distrusted on his views relative to affirmative action, civil rights, policing and lot of other topics on which he has been firmly on the side of right for his entire life.
Sadly, this is the exact form of racism, albeit it “reverse” racism, that is very counterproductive. When white people make assumptions about black people, it’s considered true racism and it’s ugly. When blacks look at whites and say that whites cannot understand the black experience, cannot walk a mile in their shoes, and are not able to understand things like “driving when black” there is a larger point missed.
Women’s lib made inroads not just because of women, but because of the men who supported the cause. LGBT rights are fought for not just by LGBT people, but also by straight allies standing side by side. Blacks need to understand that there are whites who do understand discrimination, and who believe in working towards a colourblind world.
It’s a great loss when people make assumptions based on how someone was born. Or how they look. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve met people who automatically assume that I’m an idiot because I’m blonde. (And it happens more then you might imagine.) Can Bernie Sanders win the Democratic nomination? Who knows. But he shouldn’t be denied the chance to be heard and considered based on how he was born.
There may be some element of that, but there’s also Sanders’ philosophical approach.
Sanders tends to attribute ills to economic inequality. Give people a good education and a good job, and problems go away.
Part of what BlackLivesMatter is arguing is that those kinds of liberal arguments are not correct: racism is a phenomenon that exists independent of class. You can be the CEO of a major company and the third generation in your family to go to college, and still get pulled over for driving while black. And if you don’t behave just exactly the way the policeman expects you to, or maybe even if you do, you could end up dead.
Clinton’s outlook is transactional, practical, and networked–a world of allies, enemies, and enemies who can be made in to allies for a time. “Blacks” is a category for her, and thus is a category she can ally with.
Sanders is more of a traditional “color-blind” liberal. If blacks are having problems, they must be problems that a white in a similar circumstance would have. So the circumstances–poverty, ignorance, bad policing–are what have to be changed.
And that’s a lot of the difference between the two on these issues and on the source of their support.
Scott — First, nice to see you!
As for Sanders view, he’s got a 97% rating from the NAACP, about equal to Clinton’s 96% rating. But I see your point, and I’m not sure that Sanders does not “get” the problems with institutional racism. What I heard him say when I attended one of his speeches back in February of this year was that we need to improve poverty, education, social services to affect change. So I see what you’re saying. But I don’t know that that is a wrong approach to what elected officials can do. I don’t know that they can change hatred directly.
But you are 100% correct on the issue of support sources.
The debates will be interesting!
I think it’s unfair for Sanders to have a “black” problem, but it is true that he is doing better in 2 states are overwhelmingly white.
I found your commentary to be very well-written and extraordinarily thought-provoking.
And SarahLawrenceScott also gave some input I want to think about for a while.
I do agree that Sanders deserves to be heard and to be a strong voice within the party. It does our party well to listen to the many facets within the party.
well, I downloaded it a bunch of times, but I couldn’t find it on my computer. one thing is for sure, Hillary not only has trucks loads more money than Bernie, she has more money in small donations than any other candidate in the race!!!!! be willing to bet she has more donations from women and people of color than anyone else….
I wonder if a black problem would be a problem. In 2008 HC won the largest urban areas and Obama took the south some say blacks turned out for him after he built up momentum and looked like he could win, would they turn out for HC with the same enthusiasm?
What will be the rules for allocating delegates, are they sticking with the divided delegates, or will it be winner take all per state? Will there be Super Delegates?
Joe. Not sure if it is in archives on this site, but I did a summary of rules for both parties earlier this year. For the Democrats, the rules are essentially the same. Pledged delegates are proportional — roughly 66% by congressional district and 33% by statewide. And there are still unpledged superdelegates.
I remember you writing when the rules were being finalized, just couldn’t remember the details, you say essentially the same, what will be different?
The only thing that I have heard that will be different (and I am not 100% sure of this) is that Texas lost its waiver and can no longer allocate some delegates by the primary and the others by the caucus. On the other hand, with the sheer level of details, I am not sure that there isn’t some minor change that was slipped in there over the past two cycles that I missed.
Kind of related to your rift origin explanation, HBO debuted the first two episodes of Show Me a Hero about late 80s federally mandated affordable housing integration in Yonkers, it’s a good depiction of the ugly underbelly of race politics in NY good wonky dramatic television