It's how they control us...get us fighting with each other so we can't work together to fight THEM.

...but race isn't an abstraction. It's actually an important issue, at least for those who are negatively impacted by their race.

What's always interesting to me is how some view any discussion of race as an attack or a threat.

As Deray McKinnson famously said, "My blackness is not a weapon."

Because some people have convinced themselves that "not seeing race" is a virtue and evidence that they've somehow evolved beyond the rest of us, they see anybody who acknowledges very real race-related issues as some sort of threat.

Colorblindness isn't a virtue. It's just blindness.

Race and racism are important issues and that's why they are so potent as wedge issues. The elite play to our fears, and that distracts us away from looking closely at what they are actually doing.

They eat all the damned cookies in the jar.

Sad that those who refuse to see that it's a corporate-supported, ingenious line they're selling will gain so much less from their candidate getting in than if they'd voted for sanders.

civil rights and some want to believe they are playing- or have "stockholm syndrome".
the lack of empathy it displays is pretty darned alienating.

It is about having different views of the same thing. I have spent countless hours reading about this issue and talking to AA friends about it because it's important to me to understand it, because I care deeply about racial injustice, have nothing but empathy about that and to me it is clear from her history that Hillary is disingenuous. The question of why Bernie as an alternative to her isn't receiving the warmth many of us would expect from POC is partly a mystery and partly something very sad, that is the conclusion I have reached. I can't discuss the very sad part on DU because it is unacceptable here, people will deny it, flame those of us who believe it to be true, in fact it has been raised delicately and created fireworks of denial and ridiculous derision.

Again, I am truly sorry that the way I/we white folk are communicating this feels bad but we are speaking another view which is contempt for the racially-impacting injustices Clinton has been Partially responsible for causing. There are many many scholars who have said this, and it is not just white scholars at all. There have been videos and articles posted right here on DU.

being informed by their own life experiences, and having different priorities- is condescending.
It is on it's face, and if you explain you have different priorities, then you get blasted for being selfish- or stupid.
That has been the conversation, and it's alienating. I don't think "it's racist" but shit, when people were just saying he didn't put any effort into thinking about "identity politics", people here got their backs up and started claiming that this was an accusation of racism. A lot of people here poisoned the conversation here.

other things like about killing welfare, shrinking credit and hiking imprisonment (and profiting from privatized prisons) and all the other things that on their face suggest that she doesn't actually seem to give a damn. Except to get the votes, when she's suddenly visiting flint and can't stop saying obama's name for 5 minutes, etc. it'd be a different conversation, then. Ok, this is painful to think about because it's a profound betrayal of trust, but there's no acknowledgement of the facts. Just completely don't talk about those facts, either to factually contest them or to offer some other response to them, directly. When the issue is raised it is shot down only by generalities, which looks like the facts are being ignored. I hope that makes sense and doesn't feel hurtful, this is hard to talk about.

rather than a social problem that needs to be addressed; it divides rather than sparks the seeds of group solidarity and expanding unity beyond its borders; it's a corporate way of promotion rather than a way to build a more equitable society for all

and you cannot talk about the primaries without talking about how different demographics vote?

We know that neither is a racists. That still doesn't mean that race is an important element of the primaries and has to be discussed.

Corporate interests and a corrupt party nomenklatura are fixing the primary for Clinton, although she is a wildly unpopular person in the country, who can actually lose the election to Trump. Whether the popular insurgency within the party will stop this nomination is the deciding factor.

Under challenge, the Clintonistas are trying to treat African Americans as their personal block of asbestos.

is that why all the lame pathetic excuses are now bubbling to the surface as reality sets in?

Keeps them pissing at each other instead of uniting to fight for their shared interests.

And to those who say that is ignoring racism, I'd say

1) You are correct . It is not the sole solution to social and legal racism. It also ha to be tackled in otehr ways. But it's a lot easier to tackle them if people have a full stomach, decent housing and healthcare.

2)If diverse people are working towards a common goal, the likelihood of breaking down barriers and empathizing and actually liking each otehr increases too.

The stark realization than one of the candidates is beholden to powerful interests and pursues their agenda, and the other is not and does not.

The powerful interests have a stake in making sure their surrogate is elected...

The bottom line of that study is that the elite hold elections, let most of us vote, and allow us a degree of freedom of speech and assembly. Unless you are a billionaire or a large corporation, that's the limit of what the elite will allow you to participate in our democracy. Until the oligarchy is addressed and relieved of its chokehold on our country, we will not be able to address adequately any other issue be it racism, economic inequality, access to healthcare and higher education, a clean environment, global warming, poverty, aggressive foreign policies, whatever. To be clear, I am not saying that breaking the oligarchy will fix all these other problems, rather it would allow us the possibility to address these problems in meaningful rather than symbolic ways.

Why do you think we hash over the same old social issues ad nauseum? They distract from a discussion of economic reality as well.