Bernie Sanders, who is putting up a huge fight against Hillary in the Democratic race, was criticized by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer for the Atlantic who focuses on racism, issuing a strong critique of Bernie Sanders for opposing reparations for slavery. This comes after a minority focused “Black and Brown” forum in Iowa, in which a host asked him about reparations for slavery. Bernie Sanders responded,
“No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.”
Bernie Sanders then fell back on his usual stump speech, calling for raising the minimum wage, free public universities, and single-payer healthcare. However, Coates called him out, writing in The Atlantic:
“The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil.”
Coates continues,
“Unfortunately, Sanders’s radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy.” The author also stressed that Bernie Sanders was ‘good’ in many ways, but refused to fight against white supremacy. In his view, Sanders opposition to reparations was about upholding the ‘white supremacy’ system Coates thinks the US has. He also writes that Sanders thinks blacks aren’t “much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.”
Coates ends with a call for reparations and that they are the “indispensable tool against white supremacy.”
Bernie Sanders was disrupted by Black Lives Matter in Seattle last year. He has made racial justice a big part of his campaign, but it looks like it’s not good enough for people like Coates.
Bernie Sanders is a man who is focused on dividing Americans through class and wealth, while believing that everyone has a right to each other’s wealth. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a man who is focused on dividing Americans through race and believes that African-Americans have rights to reparations because of the past injustices and oppression by the state.
Both of them are wrong.
1 comment