'I worked for Bernie in 2016. Here's why Black voters aren't feeling the Bern in 2020'

[swag]

https://thegrio.com/2020/03/31/i-worked-for-bernie-2020/

OPINION: Sanders' former national Black outreach director says the Vermont senator hasn't yet learned from his past mistakes

By Marcus Ferrell - March 31, 2020

Excerpt:

"Black and indigenous people are the original progressive people of America. How do you call yourself a progressive without consistently acknowledging us? The problem is, as is the problem with most of the white progressive spaces, he took everything from the Black movement and forgot about the Black part.

Bernie simply didn’t do what was needed to take his energy, popularity, and email list to boost his Black support during the 2016 election and leading up to 2020. This is not an indictment against what he stands for, but rather the political will to implement necessary tactics to earn Black trust.

How are you going to peel Black support from a man who was the VP to America’s first Black president? Time, tactics and effort, that’s how. Bernie had 4 years to set up in Black communities and engage them with his message, organization, but he instead chose to do the same thing — only to get the same result. It’s political insanity.

That has nothing to do with Joe Biden having an invigorating campaign (show me the large Black media buy) or Black folks trusting him. It has everything to do with taking the time for them to trust what’s already in the hearts of most Black leaders and voters: real change for our communities."

[efhmc]

1. Interesting.

[DownriverDem]

2. No matter what

for me it's because Bernie is not a true Dem. I sure hope after he admits he lost, he will go to the independent hole from whence he came.

[Thekaspervote]

3. +10000....sick sick sick of bernie!!

[Cha]

4. No he hasn't and one reason why he thankfully lost.

[Raggaemon]

5. Ever hear, "Bernie Sanders has a Cornell West problem"?

SO few people I've encountered on Social Media sites heard this, you would have had to read "The Root" online, which is a black news & entertainment site, it provided evidence of the "2 Americas" we live in.

For the Sanders campaign to believe in relying on professor West to work as a black outreach surrogate was wrong-headed, West is well know for bombastic language, his deep disdain for president Obama was well known at that time, why risk alienating black voters using a surrogate who called Barack Obama "the first NIGGERIZED president", West also called president Obama, "Nelson Rockefeller in blackface", this was the right way to gain traction with the "heart & soul of the democratic party"? Professor West made those comments on TV, not on some obscure website or blog site, someone with the Sanders team HAD to know, it's not believable that BS didn't know that West was on CNN and with Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now program, so NOBODY knew???

It's one thing to criticize Cornell West's ugly comments, the bigger issue is that there never were any disavowals from the Sanders camp, no one criticized West, Bernie didn't, which leads me to think that Bernie approved, NO ... it's not a plausible deniability to claim that Bernie didn't know, if that's the excuse then what does that say about the lack of campaign coordination, when his top black outreach guy gives TV interviews and BS is kept out of the loop? Hell, I saw the interviews !!!

Every BS supporter I mentioned this to did the same thing, they responded by asking if Bernie knew about West's comments, as if that made it easier for them to accept.

The bottom line is that for BS to have used someone who's made it clear what he thinks about president Obama, his harsh criticisms, saying once that "Obama wasn't the RIGHT black president", was plain stupid, if the goal was to gain traction with black voters.

[LiberalFighter]

10. This needs to be out more.

[Hortensis]

6. Leaders of mostly white populist movements cannot serve AA interests.

That is because all populist movements draw a lot of social conservatives who are motivated by antagonism toward others. So much so that their influence is always defining. LW class warfare and RW nativist, nationalist, or white power movements differ in how relatively mild or rabid their dominating influence is, not whether it exists.

Sanders, the far left class-warfare revolutionary, had to choose:

* Draw only LW idealists to a little statement campaign that settled for claiming Democratic ideals for their own (including equality) and thus anything we do could be called their victory, or

* Try to create a genuine movement by drawing large numbers of aggressively antagonistic (toward everyone) mostly white populist types, who would otherwise go to Trump, and to use them to try to burn down the national barn for him.

And Sanders ambitiously chose the latter. One guess why.

[Gothmog]

7. Great article

Thank you for posting

[betsuni]

8. K&R

[DAMANgoldberg]

9. The first sign was Symone Sanders

The fact she went over to Biden could and should have been an early sign. It got decent play at the time, and it has been shown to be the correct move.

I was not a fan of Hillary in 2016, though I voted for her in the primary and general elections. My politics weren't really being addressed by anyone who stayed in the race (Gov. O'Malley comes to mind). That's ultimately neither here nor there now.

I think the world of Symone Sanders among others, I really want Kamala Harris as VP. Hopefully this will come to pass.