Hoochie girl?
BainsBane (31,557 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026739071
How you can tell if Sanders speaks to the concerns of people of color
Last edited Thu May 28, 2015, 08:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Is if they vote for him. Members here can insist people of color have no right to question Sanders' commitment to their community. They can insist he is too important to be questioned. Such an argument, I predict, will not be persuasive with voters of color, and African Americans in particular, who are ESSENTIAL to any Democrat's success.
I myself find it offensive that a few white people feel entitled to tell African Americans they have no right to ask whether a candidate speaks to their interests, that they need to assume he has their best interests at heart. I find it profoundly undemocratic to insist a politician not field questions about his positions and plans, that he is more important than the people he seeks to represent. I suspect Sanders himself will not behave so imperiously, that when voters ask him what his plans are, what he will do for them, he will answer. He has to. That is expected of any politician. Yet here people insist such questions are hostile, Third Way, neoliberal. Daring to ask what his plans or accomplishments are is treated as heresy.
I can't help but feel deeply saddened over this sort of hostility. Placing uncritical adoration of a politician above equal rights, above the concerns of people of color, and above the people's right to question their representatives is as clear an abrogation of civic engagement as I can imagine. It shows disregard for the electoral process and profound lack of respect for the voices and democratic rights of citizens. A politician should not ever be elevated about the people he serves. That kind of reverence for a public figure is more akin to monarchy or celebrity worship that electing a people's representative. If you believe Sanders will better represent the people than other candidates, why would you so resent your fellow citizens asking what he will do? Such an attitude contradicts the case for his nomination.
Oh, please. The DNC will tell you exactly who is the best for Black People and you will vote for her. Period.
DanTex (7,384 posts)
1. You didn't get the memo? Only corporatists and neoliberals care about race anymore. Social issues are totally passe.

BainsBane (31,557 posts)
3. Yeah, I got that memo and it's a transparently right-wing argument.
Hillary is right-wing.
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
4. Look for the threads expressing outrage over questioning Sanders commitment to Civil Rights. Look for the thread that shows 87 percent of African Americans support Clinton. Look for the thread accusing those who charge Sanders with "racism" (which I never seen no one do) of being neoliberal. Especially look for that last one. At least two of those threads are on the first page of GD.
Bernie is neo-liberal? I thought Hillary was neo-liberal?
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
11. That doesn't respond to my OP either other than providing evidence for my point. This is about respect for your fellow citizens. If you can't manage that, don't pretend to be a leftist. There is no white men only leftism. That doesn't exist. There is no leftism that says people of color are easily manipulated. There is nothing progressive about such ideas. They are profoundly anti-egalitarian. You are not better or smarter than women or voters of color. You have one vote, equal to but not better than anyone else's.
Leftists respect their fellow citizens... but if they think the wrong things then they will be re-educated for their own good.
Exilednight (6,835 posts)
29. First thing to correct: you added LGBT, not him. Second: don't confuse
The Democratic base with the liberal or progressive bases of the party. PoC and some women, make up the base of the Democratic Party, but not necessarily the progressive base.
LGBTs are more a part of the lineralbase, and not the party or progressive base.
Here's the difference: liberalism and progressivism is an ideology and not an identity. That's not to say that PoC or women can't be liberal or progressive, but they're not mutually inclusive.
Just look what happened in California when gay marriage was struck down by ballot initiative due to the AA vote.
If the various minorities ever figured out what the DNC has been doing to them for the last 50 years there would be blood in the street. Well... more blood. And mostly Liberal blood.
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
36. Are you saying Clinton shouldn't seek to appeal to people of color?
Is that your point?
I don't see any evidence Clinton is marginalizing progressives. In fact, she is adopting a number of Sanders positions, which tells me she is courting their votes.
My comment wasn't about Sanders. It was about self-entitled posters on this website.
No... I think Hillary should speak at every PoC rally with a fake negro accent... kind of like the one Biden talked about Barry O having.
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
41. Her approach is the same as all Democrats have done when running of the presidency in recent years, appear to the demographics who support the Democratic party. Progressives do not resent the concerns of women and people of color, and they do not resent the fact politicians speak to their issues. That position that there is something divisive or inferior about addressing the majority is a RW argument made frequently by the Republicans against Obama and the Democratic party more generally. There are issues particularly to women, LGBT Americans and people of color, as well as Latinos, that white men don't have to worry about. Understanding that is basic to any Democrat's election and hostility to it is anything but progressive.
As for you and folks like yourself on DU, you have made clear you do not like Hillary Clinton. Why should she spend her time courting people like you who see something wrong with politicians who address the concerns of the majority?
I see little concern for poverty here. I see people insisting they know what is best for the poor, but it's the issues they care about: drones, Iraq, the NSA, and TPP. A Sanders supporter insisted to me that funding foodstamps was his candidate's solution to poverty, and that it somehow amounted to income redistribution. That is a position supported by every conservative, Third Way Democrat. I don't know all of what Sanders has actually said on the subject. Be clear that I do not assume what his supporters say here constitute the sum total of his views and plans. I'm waiting for the debates to evaluate the candidates. Rather, the foostamps comment was what that member who regularly goes around insulting posters far less fortunate than himself decided was an adequate solution to poverty. I see a lot of charges against other Democrats as corporatist, Third Way, allied with Goldman Sachs, yet when those people get around to discussing an issue (which is rare) they are usually mainstream, status quo positions. Food stamps is not a solution to poverty. It is the result of a system based on rampant inequality. I would submit any progressive/lefitst approach should involve a living wage. Unlike that other poster, I have lived on food stamps. It was like buying groceries with the Mark of Cain. I think the poor, such as I was growing up and again later in life when I needed food stamps, deserve true equality, a right to a living wage, not to be an after thought of the bourgeoisie's concerns to regain what they see as their rightful place atop the capitalist world order.

Exilednight (6,835 posts)
47. A lot of that made absolutely no sense. You lost me when you started Talking about food stamps, redistribution and status quo. You, also, admitted that you know nothing about where Bernie stands on issues, but yet mad a thread to attack him.
Oh, no... you never accuse the BB of things like that!
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
52. No, I didn't make a thread to attack him
You don't seem to read very carefully at all. I didn't attack Sanders at all.
As for the part about food stamps, it was the perspective of someone who has been poor. It was saying that food stamps is not a solution to inequality but accommodating a society based on rampant inequality. There are currently necessary but not adequate, and the position that some DUERS have articulated that it is enough to deal with poverty show they are not concerned about inequality but rather their own class privilege.
I earn a living from my writing
. I know for a fact I write quite well. If any particular part is unclear, I can explain or clarify it If you don't understand, it's because you do not care, and the issue I discussed is one you claimed to care about.
I have no problem with Sanders. My problem is with posters like yourself who see something wrong with appealing to the majority rather than to a privileged minority. I see something wrong with people who claim to care about poverty but demonstrate in positions that they take that they do not.
Maybe BB and teh NADIN are really the same person?
treestar (56,967 posts)
31. Huh?
Illogical. Are you saying the "Progressive Base" is white and male?
White, Rich and Male.
Bonobo (25,173 posts)
25. Baine, Baine, I told you. There are POC here who have not forgotten Hillary's racist-tinged campaign of 200[6]
Are you ignoring THEM?
Are you telling THEM it wasn't true?
Are you practicing what you preach?
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
26. Go read number 23's thread in the AA group
She addresses that very point. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1187&pid=14610
Now, I know you think, Bain is a girl. Hillary Clinton must be her fault. Guess what? I'm not Hillary Clinton. I'm not even a Clinton supporter. As my sig line makes clear, I remain undecided. As I have told you several times now, I am not invested in the nomination. I don't define myself politically around politicians. If you want to argue with a Clinton supporter, I suggest you confront Skinner, since he has quite publicly come out in support of her. True, he's not a girl feminist, so you may not blame him for the downfall of humanity, but life can't always be perfect.

Bonobo (25,173 posts)
28. Wow, you are really a piece of work. nt
She is something.
Star Member BainsBane (31,557 posts)
46. It's early we haven't yet had a single debate. If you want to condemn every undecided voter, go right ahead. The only outcome of such an approach is to turn voters off your candidate.
Shit! If you had a Democratic debate it would the Hill up there all alone yacking on and on...
Zorra (25,067 posts)
60. This OP is illustrative of a the cliche, "grasping for straws".
Did you get desperate memo from HQ telling you not to let the phony "Bernie is a racist" meme die, and then responded by producing this disingenuous, steaming pile of elephant poo propaganda?
The man just officially started his campaign, for crissakes.
Is "grasping for straws" sexist?
BainsBane (31,557 posts)
61. Your response is an illustration in not reading. It is not even remotely critical of Sanders. It is critical of a selfpentitled few who respond with hostility to civic engagement and elevate a politician above the citizens he seeks to represent. It is against the bourgeois, reactionary worldview that people claim is leftism and exclusionary politics that treats questions addressed to our representatives--or one representative--as heresy. Good socialist words there, BB. Uncle Joe would be proud of that. Is is against people who insist any discussion of black lives and the concerns of people of color amounts to charges of racism. Big Tree addressed the matter quite clearly here. http://election.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6739043
You have reduced this discussion to absurd caricatures. No matter how much time in the day I have, I will not waste it on such cant.
Yeah, headquarters, the same headquarters that has planted women and people of color into the Democratic party to subvert it from its true mission of promoting the interests of the white working class. The same headquarters that has imposed the concept of diversity on the American public. None of those comments are from Sanders. They are from people who do damage to his candidacy by revealing far too much about themselves. I have respect for Sanders. I can't say the same for those working to delegitimate the concerns of the majority, and the subaltern in particular.
Raise up you poor oppressed women and PoC! The Socialist Revolution is for YOU!!!
