General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am not trying to be a jerk I want to understand why BLM is targetting Bernie and Liberals. [View all]Freelancer
(2,107 posts)Bernie Sanders is collateral damage in a new civil rights campaign. He is right about poverty being an engine of racism. He knows that economic policy is his thing -- part of the equation that he might be able to do some small thing about. Unfortunately, the people protesting don't know what he knows -- that he is virtually powerless to change the hearts of human beings.
The decades-long slide in the levels of white guilt was only exasperated by the election of Barack Obama. Millions of low-information white Americans began openly questioning whether racism still exists at all. Then the outragous killings of unarmed black men started to be televised, and gained traction. Levels of white guilt began to rise again, but how to address the problem remained undefined. Leaders in some quarters of the POC community saw this as an opportunity to shape the dialog in a new direction -- to address militant policing, mandatory sentencing laws, and the unbelievable levels of black incarceration.
Bernie is a target because he represents an older mode of thinking -- that racism can best be dealt with by lifting people out of poverty. There is a crop of new leaders in the POC community that bristle at that, who want to change the entire dynamic of policing, punishment and sentencing. They are intent on having Bernie listen ... on having America listen. The protests keep going out of the hopeful assumption that America hasn't heard, because if it had, something would be happening. The sad truth is that America HAS heard, and the answer is ... NO.
America's answer is (and don't think I'm agreeing with this) if you don't want to be arrested, stop being so black. The whiter part of America, by and large, still thinks that these killings are isolated fuck-ups, and that police are the ones in real danger. That is going to be hard to change, if it's changeable at all. Until they have mixed race grand-kids, or nieces and nephews to worry about, serious change may not be possible. There's something about asking your granddaughter why she's crying, and being told that kids told her "get lost N#####", that changes everything.