General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: WillyT has been banned. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)A lot were younger people who simply didn't get the implications of what he was saying.
I agree with you that no supporter of any candidate should have defended that post, but it's not fair to argue that it delegitimized the entire Sanders campaign and made it obligatory to support the much-more-conservative alternative.
As to the references to Bernie's work in the freedom movement and his support for Jesse Jackson...those were brought up because those events proved that Bernie wasn't weak on his antiracist commitment.
We are now in the absurd situation in which POC have, to this point, voted heavily for a candidate who played a leading role in what was arguably the most anti-POC Democratic presidency since the early days of FDR. The candidate who appeased white racist claims that blackness was synonymous criminality, welfare fraud, and out-of-wedlock parenting. The candidate who fought, to the bitter end, to stop the party nominating a black man for president eight years ago.
Can you understand, looking at this as an Englishman, with some distance on the situation, why this can seem frustrating and incomprehensible to the supporters of the far-more-progressive and far-more-antiracist candidate?
We are supporting a civil rights activist and being accused of abetting social oppression for doing so.