Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Thursday at the Democratic presidential debate that he would be better at improving race relations in America than President Barack Obama.
Sanders said he thought the African-American community in particular had been gravely affected by the financial crisis.
“We are looking at an economy in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” Sanders said. “And sadly in America today, in our economy, a whole lot of those poor people are African-American.”
Debate moderator Judy Woodruff asked Sanders to clarify whether he thought race relations would be better under a Sanders presidency “than they’ve been.” (Previously, she’d asked Hillary Clinton why she thought race relations would be better if she were President).
“Absolutely,” Sanders responded.
“Because what we will do is say, instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we are going to create millions of jobs for low-income kids so they’re not hanging out on street corners,” he explained. “We’re going to make sure that those kids stay in school or are able to get a college education. And I think when you give low-income kids, African-American, white, Latino kids the opportunities to get their lives together, they are not going to end up in jail. They’re going to end up in the productive economy, which is where we want them.”
That is nothing more than a bunch of right-wing nonsense that Obama has somehow damanged “race” relations or what not.
First we have endless “Bernie-splaining” on the part of his acolytes who need to condescend to POC, and now he’s going to mend relations as if everything is Obama’s fault. No, it’s that demon of racism that lies just beneath the surface in this country, evoked endlessly by the GOP and then laid at the foot of the president.
Every time I hear a white person say this, or a “Obama hasn’t done anything to lift up the black community!”, my blood just boils at the arrogance and presumption. Enough!
Because all POC are poor and once they get money racism is over.
Nope. That’s not how that works.
Right, and because having them hang out on street corners encourages racist thoughts.
Exactly. I think it was Chris Rock that recently got pulled over four times in one month in his neighborhood. Yeah, if only he had a better job.
It was a weird insertion of black respectability politics. I don’t think Sanders has a racist bone in his body, but I just don’t think he gets it.
“hanging out on street corners”
Really has a firm grasp of minorities issues from his highly diverse state of Vermont doesn’t he.