Black Lives Matter to me, too, therefore I continue to support Bernie

[Jack Rabbit]

Civil rights may be one of Hillary Clinton's better issues, but the advancement of people in color is no longer formally tied to legal barriers, as it was when I was growing up. In spite of that progress, it is counterintuitive to claim that racism is a thing of the past, as some claim. Anybody who makes such a claim (I'm talking to you, Chief Justice Roberts) is simply reaching for a reason to do nothing about race, income inequality or voting rights for real reasons that are vulgar and politically partisan.

It is difficult for me to imagine Mrs. Clinton doing all that needs to be done in the coming years in response to the increasingly severe problems faced by America's poorest citizens or the declining standard of living for the middle class. While she has been a strong supporter of civil rights, she has been weak on matters of economic equality, preferring to placate corporate interests in exchange for campaign donations. Let's be clear and honest. Those corporate benefactors of Mrs. Clinton's political career have no interest in promoting any remedy for income inequality. They wouldn't want to see capital gains taxed as ordinary income and they want the corporate income tax so small one could drown in a bathtub and easy for them to avoid altogether. They also want jobs easy to export, the minimum wage left where it is, if not abolished, and environmental regulations so ineffective that they can poison whole communities by dumping sludge into the water supply and not be held accountable for it.

I believe President Sanders will take on these issues and is ready to fight the rich and powerful who have profited from this all-too-friendly-to-corporate-interests house that Ronald Reagan, the Bush family, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have constructed.

It is often said that when white American sneezes, black America catches cold. Right now, white American peons have pneumonia. I'm white, 63 years old and live on disability. I go into a panic every time a Republican congressman opens his mouth about Social Security or Medicare or whenever a Democrat heaps praise on the recommendations of the latest catfood commission. And I have a little more to fall back on because of white privilege. I was more likely to get a good job than a black person and more likely to paid better than the lady in the next cubicle.

I'm tired of bailing out corporate criminals when something goes wrong with their latest Ponzi scheme. It hurt me to have my income transferred to the incompetents who cashed the world economy and then have them continue as before; it hurt us the white peons, and it hurt the black peons more.

Economic injustice, social injustice and racial injustice (and also gender injustice, perhaps not getting the attention it deserves in this conversation, but women and families headed by single mothers are still more likely to live in poverty than a crooked bank executive) are all joined at the hip. These are problems that must be resolved and must be resolved together. To tackle one and not any of the others is a plan doomed to failure.

I trust Bernie Sanders more to take on all of these problems at once more than I trust Mrs. Clinton. I trust Bernie Sanders to put the interests of the people first, even if that means Legs Dimon and Pretty Boy Lloyd have to left on hold.

I want a president who won't even convene a catfood commission, let alone one who will accept a report from one. I want a president who knows that austerity is counterproductive and has no part in any economic recovery plan. I want a president who knows you don't make friends and influence people by dropping bombs on them so that their leaders will sell us oil cheaper. In fact, I want a president who knows it counterproductive to go to war for oil instead of subsidizing the development of clean, renewable energy to supplement and eventually supplant the use of fossil fuels, ending our dependency on them forever.

Black lives matter. The quality of black lives matter. For America's future and for the future of black Americans, I will vote for and support Bernie Sanders. He is far and away the best candidate for president in 2016.