Yeah, now those conservatives who watch this won't vote support him anymore.

Conservatives must be thrilled to finally have a juicy embarrassing gaff to come out of the Democratic debate. Lord knows they've had far too many too ignore from their side.

Bernie just had an amazing win in Michigan -- looks like the debate didn't hurt him too much.

Because Internet hipsters gotta spite hate everything that gives hope to idealistic young people.

Because they're stupid.

probably because:
a) a 27 second quote is War & Peace in this day and age
and
b) this old saw about "it's harder if you're black", full stop, is part of how the left's been shooting itself in the foot for a while now

also, you're being a little generous when Sanders is clearly swinging for the fences here to try to garner black votes, and whiffing

you can tell a long story about what he meant, but it's still a bad choice (from someone that I'm praying hands-and-knees saves us from Trump and Clinton)

It was definitely the wrong thing to say. While White folks by and large do not know what it's like to be persecuted by cops just for having the wrong skin tone, lots of them do know what it feels like to be poor and desperate, verging on hopeless, even if getting out of poverty is slightly easier for them.

Sanders should be building common ground. Things like this don't do that. He needs to stick with the I-know-everyone-is-hurting angle.

I'm still more excited about Sanders than Clinton, though. Sanders acts like he wants to get in the Oval Office to actually do something. Clinton acts like it's a promotion from assistant manager to supervising assistant manager, like she's done all the right things and schmoozed with all the right people and has it coming to her just because. And if she gets there, she's just going to do an average job, not make waves, keep her head down, collect her paycheck and retire a "success."

I've loved Bernie Sanders since he was a lowly Vermont representative.
I have faith that he is introducing a new, much-needed social democratic platform (I identify with the international social democratic party, if I had to choose a party) to a starved political landscape.

That being said, I don't think he would win against Donald Trump, and even if he did win, it would be a horrible presidency.

As much of an idealist as I am in my juicy soft core, I'm a pragmatist. I hate Hilary Clinton with a passion, but I think she would be able to accomplish more as a president in terms of guiding a moderate left Senate (and hopefully Congress, if we can get to 2021 and the next redistricting process).

It's not that I'm bitter or cynical. I just feel it's realistic to understand that Bernie's miraculous presidency would result in a lame duck candidacy. The GOP would win across the states for years to come.

This is what I would like to happen: After Bernie is nudged into 2nd, a real social democratic movement comes to fruition that has a permanent place in the spotlight. I want to win and keep winning.
On the bright side, this election is the most important of our lifetimes. We really might have a viable Left after this, and for that I am grateful.

Oh and five stars for the evil of "goodbye commie jew" comment that is rated at the top in the video link.

Here's what's wrong with Bernie's answer:

1) Black is not the same as poor. Most blacks are not poor and most do not live in the ghetto, and if you're black you might well resent the implication. Likewise, being poor does not mean you're black.

2) As Bernie always does, he's awkwardly turning this back to economics, his most comfortable topic. It's transparent and, when you see him do it over and over, it becomes very off-putting.

3) The one thing Bernie's answer does right is, it actually gets beyond the inherent epistemological flaw of the question by walking right into it. The question is "what blind spots on [any topic whatsoever, in this case racial issues] do you have?" and the correct answer to that question is always I CANNOT KNOW FOR SURE. Bernie makes like he DOES know and inadvertently reveals where his blind spots lie: racial inequality is only occasionally tied to economics, and that is what Bernie still doesn't get even after dealing with BLM. Trayvon Martin was not killed because he was a poor kid in the ghetto. Sandra Bland didn't die in a Texas prison because she was poor or jobless.

This is where Bernie learned everything he knows on racial issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw

Bernie would do better to read something like this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/3/1492931/-Why-black-vote rs-vote-the-way-they-do-and-advice-on-how-to-win-them

"racial inequality is only occasionally tied to economics"



Race is fundamentally a class issue.

At what income level does racism disappear?

Bernie wants economics to fix racism, oh how he wants that. What he doesn't get is that racism is what DRIVES economic inequality, when we have a GOP that profits from inequality and finds that the easiest way to sell it is with a nice shiny coat of racism.

Bort, you might find this interesting

http://nonsite.org/editorial/identity-politics-a-zero-sum-game

It's interesting, but I don't find its arguments compelling. Very near the bottom it says ...

"But it isn’t discrimination that has produced the growing economic inequality in the U.S."

... and while it's not discrimination itself that has caused the inequality, it's racism that has allowed the Republicans to sell the policies that lead to economic inequality. Lee Atwater explained it nearly 30 years ago, and even he didn't express the full depth of how the Southern Strategy works. When you have sold your audience on Democrats looking after minority interests and Republicans looking after white interests, if you are white and kind of racist yourself, you'll vote Republican no matter what.

"Bort
At what income level does racism disappear?"

Class isn't just about income level.

One function of racism, particularly institutional racism (and bigotry, although I'd argue to a lesser extent, since it's largely a symptom of institutional racism), is to segregate ethnic outgroups into their own class categories. In the USA, a black person and a white person with the same income and same employment are still not in the same class.


The dominant Western, and especially North American, paradigm for understanding human behavior right now is economic (which is a HUGE problem that doesn't get nearly enough attention) - Either consciously or unconsciously, we reduce all human behavior to a capitalist economic transactional model that has little relationship to actual human behavior. Because of this (among other things) the popular concept of "class" in the American psyche is a purely economic one, when in reality economics are only one of many facets of class. In a capitalist economy, income is obviously a major factor but there are plenty of other non-economic factors involved, as well.


A tenured professor who makes 90k-100k a year is, in many parts of the country at least, of higher class than a plumber who makes 0k a year.

tl;dr - economic inequality doesn't drive racism and racism doesn't drive economic inequality, reality is far more complex than that.

Bernie Sanders is a social democrat and even a cursory study of the European Social Democratic tradition shows that confronting the intertwined, ambiguous nature of class in society is a big part of what differentiates them from old-world socialism and communism with all of their likely insurmountable flaws.

Also what StanleyPain said below:

"StanleyPain
You fucking idiots. He was QUOTING a Black Lives Matter protestor and then responding to it. Watch the FULL FUCKING DEBATE. jesus I don't even like Sanders and *I*know this."


Though, while even before reading that (I haven't seen this debate yet and have generally been out of the loop for a week or so because of a family medical crisis) it was obvious that this was a carefully decontextualized sound bite, I still also agree that even if it weren't Bernie would have had a valid (if poorly presented and unpopular) point for reasons Seesay gave below, to wit RACE IS CLASS in American society and black people are in a lower class than white people at the same income level for all manner of historical and sociopolitical reasons I'm sure everyone here is aware of to some degree.


It might be more useful to think of race as a caste system that operates in parallel to the purely economic class hierarchy, and both are major (but not the only) contributing factors to the more complex construct that is "class."

I'm straying too far from last month's "emoticons and emotional appeals only" resolution, though, so my closing statement here is

https://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/raci al-harmony.jpg

Perhaps you should watch the clip with some context:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6IlGoeDIUQ

True, Bernie does quote a BLM protester ... but he is not quoting her in the submitted video. He's expanding on certain ideas the BLM protester expressed, but talks more about economics because Bernie.

If you want to say race is class, I see your point, but you're not using the term "class" the way Bernie usually does. Sanders leans towards economics helping everyone equally no matter their skin tone.

That Sanders even promises to end institutional racism, suggests to me that he doesn't have a good grasp of how elusive a problem it really is. We've got public schools in every part of town but they are by no means equal, even though you won't find a thing on the books that says schools with higher black populations should generally be crappier.

Hope your family crisis has resolved satisfactorially; here is an emoticon of a man with a toupee shitting:

#(:-) 3 o o o .

Says the resident man-child.

waugh???

based on what, fucker

Bernie needs to win over the poor whites and give them what they want, tax cuts for the rich.

Having lived and living in a very white state (Vermont) just about all of my life, I know Sanders has a pretty good picture of white poverty, at least here. But for sure, we are not yet at the ghetto stage of poverty. We're about to let heroin do that for us pretty soon.

Is it possible for you to be this stupid? Truly?

No, neither of them will win and Hilary will be president.

Kill me.

Oh come on RoUS, Trump is bad, but surely America wouldn't let THAT happen.

We surpassed 16-bit stupid long ago, my friend. It's going to take a quantum computer.

Hope your gastrointestinal crisis has resolved satisfactorially; here is an emoticon of a man with a toupee shitting:

#(:-) 3 o o o .

You have valid points, but I don't think Bernie is taking the stance that you're suggesting. In this very session, before this clip, he was talking about growing up poor and white in vermont. Maybe he didn't have it as hard as you, or maybe he did. I don't pretend to know that.

I do know this: he is not trying to say all white people have a fantastic existence and every person of another color is by default subject to things Whitey has no knowledge of. I think he done goofed while trying to appeal to certain voters. At least he goofs less often than other candidates whose prejudice is always at the surface.

"poor choice of words" indeed