2016 Postmortem

Rembert Browne wrote for New York magazine that Clinton “won Harlem” with a harrowing speech at the National Urban League in February in which she challenged the privilege of her fellow white Americans.

Browne was convinced that Clinton was not trying to bullshit her audience:

Watching a white woman who could be the president of the United States say things like, “For many white Americans, it’s tempting to believe that bigotry is largely behind us. That would leave us with a lot less work, wouldn’t it?” and “Race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind. Now, anyone—anyone asking for your vote has a responsibility to grapple with this reality” is uncharted waters.

I agree with that. Clinton’s frankness on race is rare at the presidential level. If you watch video of her speech, she comes across as very sincere, even if she does not directly indict her own past mistakes about race in America.

Felicia Perry, an African-American woman, said during the Q&A: “I know you’re scared to say black. I know you’re scared to say reparations. But it seems like every time we talk about black people and us getting something for the systematic oppression and exploitation of our people, we have to include every other person of color …”

Then she asked, “Can you please talk about specifically black people and reparations?”

Sanders’ response reminded some people of the language of “All lives matter”: “It’s not just black,” he said in part. “It’s Latino. In some rural areas, it is white.”

Sanders was in a staunchly activist, anti-establishment environment full of people who were very much open to a candidate who wasn’t afraid of speaking truth to power. Yet he didn’t seem able, or willing, to speak about race beyond citing statistics on discrimination against black people.

This is the Black Lives Matter era, a time in which young black people are leading a movement demanding that the powers that be—Sanders included—address the specific plight of African-Americans.

And, yes, reparations is a tricky subject to address in American politics, but it’s certainly not impossible.

Not addressing Perry’s question on the subject revealed how limited Sanders’ idealism is when it comes to exploring liberation for black people. He has no problem speaking, ad nauseam, about how America can be more like Denmark. Yet he isn’t bold enough to say black people can get reparations just like Holocaust survivors or Japanese internment victims?

On the economy, Sanders’ idealism on fighting Wall Street and advocacy for free public college education and universal health care doesn’t seem to extend to acknowledging that black people need a special kind of economic boost to come as close as possible to the 40 acres and a mule we were promised after emancipation.