2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Kos: A Black Man's take on NN/BLM dustup: "Black Folks No on Bernie? Really?" [View all]99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)The most absurd thing about the MM/BLM dustup is that of the three candidates who were invited to NN, Hillary was a no-show and has questionable (Third Way) civil rights credentials, O'Malley has a major blemish from his time as Mayor of Baltimore. The only reason Bernie is being singled out, because HE is the only threat to Hillary right now, and her supporters are gleefully throwing gasoline on the brushfire every-which-way to see if they can they can exploit it to the max, truth be damned.
Bernie has a stellar record on civil rights, he's rated 93% by the ACLU, indicating a pro-civil rights voting record, rated 97% by the NAACP, indicating a pro-affirmative-action stance, and 100% by the HRC, indicating a pro-gay-rights stance...:
http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Civil_Rights.htm
It makes absolutely NO sense for Bernie to be taking the brunt of the NN/BLM wrath. None.
That said, at the same time I DO think Team Bernie can learn from this, grow from this, to more fully embrace this issue of blacks being gunned down in our streets by out of control cops. Bernie has already been doing this, making sure that's a forceful part of his message, and my hunch and hope is he will survive it and be stronger for it.
I fully support BLM's having a voice, in fact I think they should have their own candidates' forum, a major deal, to focus on their rightful concerns about blacks being targeted, brutalized and shot down by police for no reason, not to mention the incarceration rate of blacks being WAY out of proportion to other ethnic groups.