Reposting from my locked thread in GD:
While this is very much related to the primaries, I hope the hosts will indulge me in letting me post my message here where more people will see it. I wanted to respond to something I've seen that I think goes beyond the fever over the primaries to a more troublesome attitude in general. It's this idea that the majority of black voters showing a preference that is difficult for some white people to understand is simply the result of ignorance. While I shared some confusion myself over why Clinton would receive such strong support dispite the numerous gaffes of '08 and damaging decisions of her husband, the idea that all these black potential voters were simply ignorant of these issues that deeply affect them on a direct personal level was laughable to me. I went searching online and found this article/essay from Michael Eric Dyson written in November that caught my attention and really helped this Bernie supporter understand a different sophisticated perspective. Some may not like the source, and I really know little of the author. But I found this piece very well written, thought it brought a sophisticated argument to the table, and contained a depth of content that goes deeper than simply advocating for a particular candidate.
I know there are a wide variety of reasons and rationale for a black person to support one candidate over the other (and a lot have decided Bernie is the better choice), but I really liked how this piece incorporated multiple perspectives and history.
Please read in its entirety before responding, and I apologize in advance if I didn't pick the 3 most interesting paragraphs to highlight. I'm writing on a cheap tablet, and my dad is calling me for dinner (want to post before I lose what I'be writtten, lol). Lastly, I hope my fellow Bernie supporters on this site aren't to mad at me for posting a pro-Clinton article that really spoke to me.
Yes She Can
Why Hillary Clinton will do more for black people than Obama
BY MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
NOVEMBER 29, 2015
There is good reason to be skeptical about Hillary Clinton and race. It’s never been anything explicit, necessarily, but she has sinned in the realm of signification, the place where innuendo and plausible deniability live. Let us start with her first presidential campaign in 2008, and the infamous “3 a.m. phone call” television ad that so spooked folks in the nation’s white hinterland. “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” a concerned narrator intoned. “Who do you want answering the phone?”
...
All of which leaves us with an important question: What can Hillary Clinton do for black people as president? She possesses neither her husband’s performative charisma with black folk, nor Obama’s undeniable blackness. She must instead wield the sort of power that politicians would, in a better world, solely rely on: public policy. If we were betrayed by Bill Clinton, and suffered dashed hopes under Obama, maybe, just maybe, we will get from Hillary Clinton what we most need and truly deserve: a set of political practices and policies that reinforce the truth that black lives must, and do, finally matter.
...
In New York, when I asked Clinton what policies her administration would put forth to help black folk, she effortlessly rattled them off: She spoke of redirecting federal resources to local and state law enforcement. She spoke about black unemployment, a subject Obama has hardly acknowledged, the school-to-prison pipeline, which, she said, “often starts because black kids get suspended and expelled at a much higher rate.” She talked about creating “real alternatives to incarceration” for black people, adding that “we don’t want them being put into the prison system for nonviolent, low-level offenses, but we also don’t want them just thrown out on the street. There’s got to be a much better array of services that is available for people to try to get their own lives on the right track.” She touted community empowerment and “the use of the federal dollar to try to support small businesses, which are still the backbone of most African American communities”; she advocated job-training programs, addiction services, mental health treatment: the meat, the substance.
https://newrepublic.com/article/124391/yes-she-can
