Young People of Color in the South Bronx Tell Us Why They’re Backing Bernie Sanders
"Young People of Color in the South Bronx Tell Us Why They’re Backing Bernie Sanders
John Surico
By John Surico
April 1, 2016
From the column 'The VICE Guide to the 2016 Election'
"Apparently all of you are white," the actress Rosario Dawson said to a roaring crowd, as the sun set in the South Bronx. "That's crazy... there must be issues with my eyes."
In front of her were 15,000 people, maybe more, packed into Saint Mary's Park to await the arrival of Bernie Sanders on Thursday night. It was the Brooklynite-turned-Vermont senator's first stop in the Empire State, which will hold its Democratic primary in less than three weeks. Former New York Senator Hillary Clinton holds a dominant lead in the polls, but in New York City—as in many places across the country—it's Sanders who seems to have gotten voters' blood pumping.
And though Clinton has done much better than Sanders in attracting black and Hispanic voters during this primary season, as Dawson noted, the crowd at the Bronx rally really was a hodgepodge.
When I hopped off the 6 train, I found myself in the middle of a massive line. People of color—mostly young, but some old—rubbed shoulders with white millennials who probably don't come to the South Bronx often. Signs of "Boricua 4 Bernie" and "Puerto Ricans 4 Bernie" peppered the crowd, while banners that read "Unidos con Bernie" hung all over. Before Dawson, Judy-Sheridan Gonzalez, the president of the New York Nurses Union, had yelled out to the crowd, "Yo siento el Bern!"
Clinton and her husband (who was once called "the first black president" by Toni Morrison) have traditionally been popular with the African American community, but some prominent black intellectuals—including Cornel West, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Michelle Alexander—have voiced their support of Sanders, or at least their dissatisfaction with Clinton. Speaking to his supporters in the South Bronx, it was clear that plenty of ordinary people agreed with the most common critique of Clinton: A vote for her would be a vote for the unacceptable status quo."
http://www.vice.com/read/young-people-of-color-in-the-south-bronx-told-us-why-theyre-backing-bernie-sanders
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