On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 11:08 AM, Robert Naiman wrote: > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/01/21/how-killer-mike-answered-ta-nehisi-coates-on-bernie-sanders-reparations/ > > Seems like a love-fest of agreement. I agree with Killer Mike that Sanders' cluelessness on racism does not change the fact that he is by far the most Black-friendly candidate in the field, which is, I believe, also Ta-Nehisi Coates' position.
Killer Mike does not seem to have any fundamental disagreement with Coates argument I linked to other than that Sanders is being unfairly singled out. I say that yes, Sanders is being singled out, but that's because no one else is even remotely worth the trouble. That's a compliment to Sanders, not an insult. Btw, KM is wrong that Barack Obama has never been asked about reparations: he has been and it is well-documented that he came out against. That is not the same thing as Sanders coming out against. Remember these are political statements NOT draft legislations. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-opposes-reparations-slavery-article-1.314179 -raghu. On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 11:01 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > I think the always insightful Ta-Nehisi Coates nails it. And btw I think > Coates' critique of Sanders applies to many well-intentioned PEN-Lers > (Charlie Andrews?) who also like Sanders swear by the "class first" > approach. > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/ > ---------------------snip > For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various > radicalisms, Sanders’s answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist > candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political > labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only > rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. > > [...] > > This is the “class first” approach, originating in the myth that racism > and socialism are necessarily incompatible. But raising the minimum wage > doesn’t really address the fact that black men without criminal records > have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can > making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. > Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of > white supremacy. Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues of > the day. Neither are addressed in the “racial justice” section of Sanders > platform. > > Sanders’s anti-racist moderation points to a candidate who is not merely > against reparations, but one who doesn’t actually understand the argument. > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > >
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
