What would re-establish trust here?

[Dems to Win]

39. We have a racial divide to heal within Democrats

As a white person and Bernie supporter, this election season rubbed my feelings raw. One reason Bernie didn't get a hearing from black voters across the South was the press conference held by the Congressional Black Caucus PAC which mischaracterized Bernie as a 'new friend' of civil rights. It was fine for them to endorse Hillary, but that was quite a slap to a man with a 20-year 100% record from the NAACP.

As primary season continued, I was shocked and bewildered that black activists were gleeful to see white progs get their butt slapped, as their support for Hillary was crucial in helping her to victory. I have no problem with them supporting HRC, but I don't understand why white progressives had become the enemy they were happy to see go down, a few years after we had lined up beside black voters to elect President Obama.

I was called white privileged for supporting Bernie, our issues such as relieving college students of crushing debt were dismissed as mere 'white people's problems,' black authors wrote articles about the 'white entitlement' of BernieBros, and if any white person complained about the broad brush stereotyping, it was mocked as evidence of our 'white fragility.'

Once Hillary was the nominee, there were endless comments and articles demanding that Bernie supporters and all people of good will MUST go to the polls and vote for Hillary, the only one who could beat Trump, because a Trump presidency would be so bad for POC. Anyone hesitant to do so could only be awash in privilege, and is too selfish to think of others who would suffer under Trump.

Ugly personal confession time: I would often read these pleas and think to myself, "My concerns are mere white people's problems, but you expect me to go to the polls and vote for your concerns? How's that supposed to work....."

Of course, I'm an adult and my commitment to civil rights is irreversible, so I did Trudge Up That Hill. But, though I've long been a yellow-dog Democrat, my tail wasn't wagging. And not quite enough people in enough crucial states went to the polls and did their duty, and the Democrats lost.

The opponent was so clearly awful, Democrats should have won by 20 points. This is a disaster.

If white people believe that Democrats want them to sit in the back of the bus and contemplate their white privilege, we are going to have a hard time getting enough votes to win.

There was an article in The American Prospect shortly before the election that really gave me pause.

What’s Millennials’ Support for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson All About?

HAROLD MEYERSON OCTOBER 6, 2016
White skin privilege, that’s what.


"On the afternoon of the opening session of this summer’s Democratic Convention, I was walking into the convention arena while hundreds of young demonstrators, many carrying signs backing Green Party candidate Jill Stein, shouted and occasionally hurled invectives at those entering the hall—an odd tactic, I thought, since more than 40 percent of the delegates entering the building were Bernie Sanders’s. The friend I was walking in with—a Latino legislator from California—cast a cold eye on the demonstrators and noted, “They’re all white.”

endquote

A group of young, passionate Americans airing their grievances and anger and pain, and their opinions are immediately dismissed completely because of the color of their skin. By a legislator, no less.

No similar incident with a legislator dismissing a crowd because "They're all black" would ever be reported by Harold Meyerson as a reasonable intro to a piece in a liberal magazine.

I understand that white privilege is a thing. My heart aches for Sandra Bland. She was me, 30 years ago, in a rental car on her way to her new job in a new town. No asshole racist cop ever made a U-turn to get behind me and provoke a confrontation that ended in her tragic, lonely death. The entire justice system is disproportionately biased against people of color, and we need to thoroughly address it.

It's also true that white skin is not a 100% protection against police brutality and unfairness. There are whites who've been killed by police in unjust ways. I have a family member who is an ex-con, and the police will go to great lengths to run him out of the small heartland town he lives in. They've unfairly extorted thousands of dollars out of my father (bro can't possibly pay the unreasonable fines), and he's paid up, to keep him out of jail. Police brutality and corruption is a problem that affects all of us, and we can work on the entire, big problem while acknowledging racial disparities, but not portraying the entire issue solely as POC problems.

The childhood poverty rate in the US is shameful. The POC childhood rate is twice that of whites, which is horrific. Will I be satisfied if/when the US brings the POC childhood poverty rate down to equal that of whites? No I will not, not until they are all equal at 0% poverty rate.

I voted for Jesse Jackson. I still believe in the Rainbow Coalition: Some of us came over on the Mayflower, some on slave ships, some flew on jets, but we're all in the same boat now. (paraphrase of one of Jesse's campaign riffs) I feel we need to recapture that spirit.