Fifteen theses on Bernie and racial justice

By Joseph M. Schwartz
Professor Of Political Science, Temple University

I think this admittedly lengthy post (really a draft article) sheds some light on a discussion that's generated more heat than insight in some quarters (mostly among white lefties who want to defend Bernie as beyond reproach..no matter how good Bernie may be (and he's fantastic at framing issues as the 99% vs. 1% and the people vs. the oligarchs), he can improve in terms of speaking out on racial justice and immigration issues on their own crucial terms..in a way that doesn't quickly reduce them to purely class justice questions (they are, in part, but only in part..see below why racial injustice and racism cannot be fully redressed thru a race-blind economic justice agenda..that's a necessary, but not sufficient part of a racial justice strategy and movement..)

(what follows are not so much theses as empirical realities..that is, facts on the ground..sorry for 15, but Karl took the #11...so a baker's dozen..plus two more...worth a read, I think..will publish as article soon..)

I'm very active doing Bernie work,but one only has to look at the facts to know that:

1. the Sanders campaign has to do major outreach to the Black and Latino communities (who make up 35% of Democratic primary voters, folks!) and that he can only do that if he gets progressive Blacks and Latino activists to endorse him and vouch for him in those communities and to help organize events with him in those communities..

he has not done a single event in a Black or Latino neighborhood..Clinton has done plenty and has major Black and Latino outreach folks on staff..

2. Hillary has given major addresses on mass incarceration, police
brutality, voter restrictions, and immigrant rights...moderate neo-liberal solutions, but she's given these addresses with aim of showing that Bernie has not! The Clinton's are opportunists..smart ones!

3 as any poll will show or quick glance at any of his rally pictures demonstrate (even in multi-racial cities) Bernie's core base of support is clearly among white college-educated liberals to radicals..(terrific that many of them are young..not just old New Left generation)...that's fine..and a base to build from...

how to expand the base has to be a major Bernie strategy concern...cmon folks, after NH and Iowa, he's on to S Carolina (60% of Dem primary voters are Black there) and Nevada (40% of Dem primary voters are Latino...

4 Bernie has not a single person of color among his top twelve staffers!!!..and only one women!..Hilalry's top staff are half women and over 1/3 people of color..not a single person with roots in Black or Latino community on staff as outreach coordinator..he's raised $15 mill and spent $3 mill as of July 1..not wisest use of funds! (BTW, Bernie also has to up his game as to gender issues, repro rights, and LGBTQ rights..none are in his 12 point program, nor is voter restriction, immigrant rights, dealing with mass incarceration and police brutality and housing and school segregation, etc...why not add these? like yesterday!!!!

5. he's polling about 5% among likely Black and Latino Dem primary voters and only has about 25% name recognition among them

6. he has a good track record on racial justice issues, but like many white socialists/social dems of his generation he quickly moves from racial justice issues to pure class/economic justice solutions..i.e., full employment will solve mass incarceration..

7 he should know that race and gender segmented labor markets mean you can have full employment with Blacks and Latinos having disproportionate number of low-wage service jobs..after all, there was high employment rates in Jim Crow South for African-Americans, but jobs were mostly as tenant farmers, share croppers, and domestic labor!

8. racial jsutice issues relate to class justice, but can't be reduced to them...working class and poor Blacks between ages of 18-30 are 10 times as likely to be in jail or prison tahn working class and poor whites! and beacuse of red-lining and hsitory of segregated housing, middle class Blacks live in poorer neighborhoods than do poor whites (low-income whites tend to live proximate to working class and even middle class whites).

this ain't rocket science...when talking about racial justice Bernie should say repeatedly that AFrican-American and Latino youth (even middle-class youth) are subject to arbitrary violence by police infinitely more than whites..that is a white skin privilege (though working class and poor whites get tooled up by police far more readily than affluent whites..but not at comparable rates to African-American and Latino worknig class and poor youth)...

inner city ghettos exist folks and, thus, Black and Latino poverty is far more concentrated than white poverty, mass incareations rates are infinitely higher among low income Blacks and Latinos than among low-income whites, whites use marijuana more than Blacks, but get busted for marijuana use at 1/5th the rate of Blacks...

9 cmon folks this ain't hard to figure out..unless you're a classic "white social democrat wtih a racial blind spot" (the old Maoist charge agianst white social dems..I'm a left social dem/democratic socialist, but charge has some validity..even re: Eugene Debs)...Hubert Harrison left the SP in the 1920s over this...

10. If a 60 year old Jewish white guy from the Bronx can get this (and a long-time dSA activist) so can a 73 year old Jewish white guy from Brooklyn (Bernie)..sure, he was a civil rights activist..but white socialists who were in early civil rights often were tone deaf to the Black Power movement and didn't get that for AFrican-Americans integration isn't the goal...empowerment is...

11.Mike Harrington was bit better than Bernie, but he, too, almost immediately framed racial justice issues as economic justice issues...cmon folks..race, gender, sexual, and class oppression are intersectional (and, yes, all structured by capitalism..) but, guess what, folks, we can even abolish private ownership of the means of production and still ahve forms of oppression based on race, gender, nationality, and sexuality (the majority of workers in a worker-owned enterprise could assign the most repeitiive, boring jobs to women and/.or people of color).

So all of us active in the Bernie effort (particularly white leftists) have to help the campaign broaden its outreach and deepen its understanding of racism and racial jsutice (and of immigrant rights...)

12. Hillary's strategy: to win among white working class women and to clean Bernie's clock among Blacks and Latinos..she's lined up most of the Black and Latino Congressional and mayoral Dem establishmetn behind her...so what's our strategy for Bernie

finally, I've raised $$s for Bernies mayoral and Congressional campaigns and Senate and helped host major fundraisers for him in Boston in the 80s...Bernie is kind of a party of one and doesn't take advice readily..sort of llike Jessie Jackson..we'll have to build a movement around him and after him (He's not an organizational type..doesn't belong to any socialist org..though he's spoken at 4 DSA conventions...and he never joined the Vermont Progressive Party)...so we'll have to put pressure on his staff to reach him..I assure you that I know Black and Latino left activists who ahve tried to dialogue with him about the above concerns..haven't gotten very far yet...

13. if Bernie can't build more of a Rainbow he will be Howard Dean..will do well with white liberal/leftists/educated middle strata in Iowa and N hampshire and then die in multi-racial major states...well, not die..but get 15-20% of vote max...in major states Black and Latino vote is 30-50% of the Dem primary vote..remember, in general elections Dem presidential candidaters draw 45%-48% of their vote from votesr of color...the above realities need to inform the Sanders campaign strategy or it will be an unsuccessful campaign..
14.if white folks in the campaign want to win and also build a stronger multi-racial left (and socialist movement)( ouf of this campaign they have to speak out and not get all defensive when Bernie is criticized for not being vocal enuf about racial justice and immigrant rights issues.

15 we desperately need Bernie to be the first major Dem candidate who talks about how racism and neoliberal Dem and Republican racist politics around crime and welfare underpins the entire neolibreral attack on progressive taxation, public goods, social rights, etc.,..after all, when the Republicans talk about the "takers" and the "makers" they are dog whistling to white working class swing populist voters that the "takers" are people of color and the "makers" are white workers and corporate elites (what b.s...financial speculators don't make shit..) And by openly showing how welfare reform and federal crackdown on minor drug crimes fueled the attack on poor people of all races, he can criticize the Clintons (Hillary supported Bill's welfare reform, remembers) that is, he can distinguish himself from Hillary based on her past policies, not on her character...Bernie is far better than Hillary on racial justice issues..but he has to work with activists who have a base in communities of color and who can help him articulate his politics in a way that speaks to the visceral sense on part of many people of color that economic and racial oppression are intertwined, but also somewhat independent of one another

for example, all polls show that middle class African-Americans believe they face more discrimination at work than do working class African-Americans..see Jennifer Hocschild's Facing Up to the American Dream ..why? middle class Blacks work in multi-racial environments and with white peers more than do working class and poor Blacks...so employment discrimination based on race can't be reduced to an economic justice or class questions.

Bernie needs to get this and articulate that he understands that racial injustice is related to economic injustice, but can't be reduced to it...is that too much to ask..if he can't do this (and engage in serious dialogue with progressive activsits of color as to how to broaden out his campaign), it just shows he's not ready to do politics on a national scale..remember, Vermont is 95% freakin white and he's been operating in Vermont since the late 60s!