Among the many insightful comments in my previous diary, I found this one particularly poignant:
If someone in Bernie's camp had told him he was off key in his messaging in this area. He has had plenty of time to correct this message ever since Kos critiqued his kickoff.I support Bernie Sanders because I believe that in fact he's correct that economic inequality generally, and economic deprivation for particular minorities in particular, is at the heart of so much that is wrong in society, and that fixing it will fix many of the social ills bedeviling American society.And yet.
No matter how many times it has been said since he launched his kickoff, that his message of economic justice automatically equals social justice is just flat out wrong, he still insists that #BlackUnemploymentMattersMost and #blacklivesmatter secondarily. Even as he is face-to-face with black members of the Black Lives Matter movement.
This message needs to stop now: There's no social ill too sick that ending wealth inequality can't fix.™
That is, if he wants to be heard by the groups who know better.
I cannot put it any more clearly.
Black Harvard Professor Skip Gates was profiled, and arrested and fortunately not killed by law enforcement based on a distress call from a fearful neighbor.
Skip Gates was employed Sen. Sanders. Skip Gates has wealth Sen. Sanders.
But he is still black in America and stopping TPP is not going to fix this specific problem.
The unarmed bikinied 15 year old black girl that was profiled, chased and sat on by a cop could have has the highest-grossing lemonade stand in Texas, that still would not have protected her from this special treatment that black kids get that an unarmed bikinied 15 year old white girl would not get.
The black host of the private community pool party where the black girl was sat on by a cop, had a job Sen. Sanders.
Her private community home ownership illustrated that she has means Sen. Sanders.
I think the The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final march for poverty gave many the wrong impression that the key social justice was a job and income parity.
Black people have had an exponential growth in academic achievement, career achievement and income achievement.
Dr. Dre is a billionaire. He still is vulnerable profiling and risk at the hands of law enforcement in a way that Warren Buffet is not.
It is akin to blaming the victim for their deaths at the hands of law enforcement, to keep insisting that their lives would be saved by employment or wealth.
Wealth and unemployment had nothing to do with why Trayvon Martin was stalked and killed on the way to his employed father's home.
But this is a very big-picture, long timescale view. It takes a systemic rather than an individual perspective.
I'd say that "his message of economic justice automatically equals social justice" is not flat out wrong, but that it will take a time scale that POC have run out of patience waiting for.
Taking the bull by the horns and prioritizing social justice issues over economic justice ones makes sense in the moment, because life is short, and we all want to make life better while we're living it, not just in some distant future long after we're dead.
Black Harvard Professor Skip Gates was profiled and harassed by law enforcement because although he himself is a wealthy and privileged member of the elite, he suffered because many other POC are not, and he was not viewed as the individual he is, but through the lens of the disadvantages so many other POC struggle against.
Likewise with the bikinied teen at the pool party and potentially with any other wealthy and influential POC like Dr. Dre.
The point of tackling income inequality is to wipe out that systemic disadvantage and put everyone on a more equal footing, where fewer automatic assumptions, including economic assumptions, can be made about a person simply on the basis of skin color.
There will always be cultural differences between different ethnic and social groups, but without the income inequality that hangs negatives on one group and privileges another, they're more just differences that can be enjoyed and appreciated instead of deprecated, mocked, or used to inflict even more social harm. At least they will be eventually, probably after all living generations have passed on.
But that's the long view.
It's not surprising that people are not willing to suffer any longer.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to throw out attacking the underlying problem in favor of addressing just the symptoms. Both economic justice and social justice have to be addressed.
I'm in favor of BLM getting Sanders' attention on racial issues and getting him to address them more urgently within his broader economic message.
My views have been evolving on this. Like Sanders, I believe that economics is at the core of issues that express themselves in myriad social arrangements, with all their intended and unintended effects.
But I can also see how dreadfully slowly things change, and why people, particularly POC, are out of patience with it, and want to shake the complacency with that slow change out of all of us.