Read the Tweets from the Media Director of Netroots Nations. He knew this would happen.

[dreamnightwind]

408. I honestly don't know

What concerns me is we've seen, from mostly the corporate Democrat supporters here on DU (I don't hang out elsewhere so I don't know what that is like) a pretty bizarre attempt to frame Sanders as not caring or insensitive about the concerns of people of color. These efforts to frame Bernie that way almost never contain specific policy that they want Bernie to support, it's more like Bernie is supposed to somehow end racism in the hearts of Americans, pity that Obama and Clinton(s) haven't already done so.

I would see it in a different way if it were being done to a candidate like Clinton, who I don't see as having many actual policy stands that will help minorities, except perhaps where corporate interests and minority interests intersect (cheap labor pool for corporations, H1-B and guest workers from Clinton), and who actually used thinly veiled racially coded statements against Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Sanders is the absolutely best candidate minorities have when it comes to policy issues.

So you have the corporate Democrat supporters here who have for some time now been trying to attack Sanders this way, it has seemed very much like a strategic decision that was made, the Clinton people seeing that they had a problem on the left, no doubt came up with a strategy, mostly empty of policy so it didn't cost them anything as far as their corporate donors were concerned, to attack Sanders on minority concerns. What a joke.

The BLM people could have had a good interaction with Sanders and O'Malley, getting specific policies addressed. Bernie would not necessarily give them all the answers they want (he doesn't pander, he tells the truth), such as I think Bernie supports American workers when their interests conflict with allowing unlimited undocumented people into this country (I could be misrepresenting Sanders there), or when corporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a far RW group that no Democrat should support) want more H1-B visas for cheap labor instead of working with and paying U.S. citizens to do the jobs. Those issues relate more to Latino interests than to U.S. blacks, so I really don't know why black people in this country would not work for positive interactions with Sanders, he is their best chance to take on the abusive police state we live in, to free them from the economic draft they fall victim to when corporations want U.S. soldiers for resource wars, to reduce incarceration, and to provide better access to healthcare, education, and employment. I honestly believe Sanders is better on all of those issues than any other candidate we've had in a long long time. But apparently that isn't good enough, for some reason.

So I think there's a concerted effort to unfairly and wrongly target Sanders as unfriendly to minorities, when it's really just that he isn't someone who will pander and market to them, he is a policy person, which is the substance rather than the marketing effort. All I have seen that feels legitimate is that people want him to showcase minorities and their interests more, to speak more specifically to those interests, to "hear" them, rather than just working on policy issues to advance their interests. Whereas Clinton will do just the opposite, she and her marketing department will put together a beautifully framed and colorful bouquet that shows she cares, and she will look the other way (wherever the money is) when policy issues arise that actually impact their lives.

If BLM really wanted anything specific they would have had an ally in Sanders, and would have done well to work with him. The Netroots host that moderated that fiasco has published books about his life as an undocumented immigrant, I believe (but do not know, I have not read his work) that he advocates completely free and unlimited, unregulated immigration into this country, in other words no border, which would actually put much downward pressure on the wage structure that black people are dealing with, and on their access to employment. There are texts showing that the Netroots founder couldn't wait to sock it to our progressive candidates at this event, and the moderator was clearly part of that effort. Sabrina's posts about Netroots and their DKos ties (and her statements about the possible nature of those ties) have been interesting, I need to learn more about that.

It fits well, though, when looked at through the corporate lens, the corporations' politicians and their wage structures and labor pool all benefit from an attack on Sanders on minority interests. What BLM gets out of it, aside from 15 minutes of attention, is the question.

I don't know what happened, I know something smells really wrong. Sometimes things just stink because they do, and sometimes they stink because there's a rat around. Perhaps as time goes on we'll know more.