Black Americans Defend Sanders Against Ta-Nehisi Coates' Biased and Baseless Attacks

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34777-black-americans-defend-sanders-against-ta-nehisi-coates-biased-and-baseless-attacks

The African American community is lashing out at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ scathing criticism of Bernie Sanders in a recent article for The Atlantic. In what seemed to be a means to strengthen the polarity between Dr. Cornel West, a Sanders supporter who made headlines last year for criticizing Mr. Coates, the article’s bias was clear. Mr. Coates attacked Mr. Sanders for something no presidential candidate—including Hillary Clinton or even President Barack Obama—has supported.

During Fusion’s Iowa Black & Brown Forum, Mr. Sanders was asked if he favored reparations. “No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil,” he responded. “Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African-American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African-American community, we have a lot of work to do. So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African-American and Latino.”

Mr. Sanders’ response wasn’t a firm “no” to reparations—he believes investments should be allocated to African-American communities to redistribute wealth and resources, helping mitigate the inequalities incited by slavery and the subsequent decades of prejudicial government and social policies. Mr. Sanders’ response may have insufficiently addressed race issues today, but that isn’t an excuse for Mr. Coates to alienate Mr. Sanders in order to unleash his own rhetoric on reparations.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, eridani.

[cui bono]

2. I have to say, the more I hear about this and think about it the more I lean towards thinking that

this was done to cause sensation and sell books. Otherwise, why not ask every single candidate? The answer has been stated that it's because it's known that Hillary isn't for it but that Bernie could be or should be. Well then, if reparation is really the goal - and I know it is in the long run since that is an issue Coates is adomant about - then why do it in a public and confrontational way where you single out the one person who might actually be on your side? If you wanted to actually get Sanders to incorporate reparations into his platform why not speak to him privately about your concerns and try to convince him it's the right thing to do?

I think because that wouldn't have gotten any attention where as this has. So who benefits from this? Not Bernie. Not the American people. Not the black community.

.

[LiberalElite]

3. Nope. Just Ta-Nehisi

which shows that just because you have an exotic-appearing name doesn't mean you're not one of THEM.

[mhatrw]

4. It's a pathetic non-issue. Attacking Sanders from the left is so transparently desperate.

As if US citizens have ever had a viable candidate to the left of Sanders ...

"But, but, but, even though not a single viable candidate in my entire lifetime has been, he's not far enough left on my one pet issue!"