From https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210456696
He won't come back from this.
An explanation of why Sanders' comments about Obama were offensive to many African Americans
I am writing this in hopes of explaining, to those who will listen, why so many African Americans* found Bernie Sanders' comments about Obama this week to be deeply offensive.
I write this to help people who may not have the experience or context to see it the way we do to better understand where we're coming from. This is not an attempt to flame or pile on Sanders or "refight the primary." It is clear to me that much of the reaction to our reaction is based on ignorance, not malice and that ignorance is the result of just not having lived through the same experiences that we have and therefore, not seeing things through the same lens we do.
So please look into this lens for a moment.
African Americans in this country have been consistently held to a different standard than whites. We've had to be three times as qualified to be considered half as good as our white counterparts. In the workspace, this has been particularly apparent. And while, thanks to various civil rights laws and changes in thinking, discrimination is not as rampant as it once was, it is still much too common.
However, unlike in the past, most discrimination isn't open - it's much more subtle. And it comes, not in being told "No, you can't have this job because you're black" but with seemingly innocuous sounding judgments, such as "He's smart and nice, but he just doesn't have what it takes" and "She's really sweet and everyone likes her, but she just isn't fitting in" or "He has a great personality, but I'm just not sure he can do the job." We are frequently told how nice, how smart, how articulate we are, but we are still assumed to lack the requisite skills to perform as well as whites.
This double standard also often applies to black politicians. So, while white politicians can come in all stripes and behave pretty much however they want, say whatever they want and still be accepted, black politicians have had to walk a very fine line just to be allowed in the room. That helps to explain why George W. Bush could be a complete screw-up into his 40s but still become President of the United States. And let's not even talk about Donald Trump, the white Don King who became president in a country where the real Don King is still and always will be just a joke. Bernie Sanders is the beneficiary of this standard. It's not his fault, certainly, but that's a fact. We all know, at least if we're honest with ourselves, that if Sanders were black, he would never have been taken seriously as a national figure, much less a serious presidential contender.
Nevertheless, despite this double standard, black voters have always and loyally voted for white politicians, despite their shortcomings, even when white voters wouldn't think of voting for black candidate. We're very savvy and look at qualifications and what they're offering to us and our communities and vote accordingly. We vote for white politicians, often over black ones, if we think the white one is more qualified. In other words, in large measure, black voters don't vote race. If we did, we would have overwhelmingly supported Al Sharpton over Howard Dean and John Kerry and Ben Carson might be president today.
But then along came Barack Obama, sharp young state senator who spoke like a preacher/professor, looked like a prince and treated his wife like a queen. But did he have the goods? We watched him carefully for two years and studied him during the primaries and saw that, yes, he did indeed. He wasn't just clean and articulate. He was brilliant, he was committed, he was caring, he had great ideas and policies. He was the real deal.
And we were absolutely thrilled because the rest of America saw this, too. And we all came together and made this beautiful brother the first black President of the United States. Even then, black voters were accused by many of voting for Obama ONLY BECAUSE he was black, ignoring the fact that, unlike white voters, we had no history of basing our votes on race.
And we were SO proud of him. I remember my father, whom I had never seen cry, weeping like a baby on election night and then again during the Inauguration. I remember how proudly my family members said "PRESIDENT Obama"- never just "Obama." He was one of us. He belonged to us. We belonged to him.
Then we watched him endure 8 years of crap that no president ever had to experience and handle it with unparalleled dignity and grace. We watched white people call him stupid, a monkey, a witch doctor, incompetent, not American. And we also heard the less openly nasty dismissals - such things as "Sure he's a good talker, but ..." and "You can't deny his charisma, but he's not ...," etc. And we knew what that meant. It was a judgment, no less dismissive than the openly racist attacks, intended to undermine and diminish his qualifications and performance.
No matter what they led the sentence with, how nice the words sounded, the true meaning was found in the words following "but" - that was the dismissal, that was the backhand, that was the insult that wiped out everything that came before. And it hurt deeply.
So, when we heard Bernie Sanders say the other day that President Obama was charismatic, an energetic candidate, brilliant BUT ... and then suggest that he was responsible for - or at least didn't prevent - the Democratic Party from being a "failure" for the last 15 years, that echoed the backhanded compliments we've been hearing all of our lives. "He may be a nice guy, BUT he's just not competent ..."
His comment also - whether he intended it to or not - suggested that the election of the first black President - something of enormous meaning and importance to us - meant little. In our view, no period of time that included the election and reelection of Barack Obama - could be casually waved away as "a failure."
Again, I am not writing this to criticize Sanders or to even impute meaning into what Sanders said. I'm not accusing him of being a racist or a bigot or intentionally insulting President Obama or black voters. But his intent is not the issue.
Bernie Sanders is an important national figure whose words are listened to and matter. As such, he must be mindful, not only of what his words are intended to mean, but also of how they are HEARD by others who come from a different experience and perspective. He should understand that saying the first black president was "charismatic," "brilliant," "energetic," without mentioning any positive aspect of his PERFORMANCE and then suggesting that he did a bad job, sounds very much to us like the kinds of veiled insults we've heard all of our lives: "He may be a nice guy, BUT he really didn't do a very good job."
I don't know what Sanders actually meant to say. But I DO know what he DID say. And it was jarring to us. And that's on him, not on us. It's not our job to climb into his brain and figure out what he meant. It's HIS job to step into OUR skin to understand our experiences and perspectives and what we see and hear. At least that's what he should do if he wants to represent anyone beyond a monolithic constituency.
But rather than show us the respect of actually listening to us and considering that his choice of words were problematic, he and many others instead attacked us for being unfair to Sanders, for "misinterpreting" what he said, for being "divisive," etc. But hearing things differently than you do doesn't mean we misinterpreted anything. Everyone brings their own experiences and context to every conversation. Telling us that our experiences and context don't matter and all that is important is what Sanders meant or didn't mean to say compounds the insult and hurt and increases the divide.
If Bernie Sanders is going to continue on the national stage and hopes for future electoral success, he must do more than just say what he's thinking. He must think about how what he's saying is heard by diverse audiences, not just his own, dedicated supporters or people whose experiences in life closely mirror his.
He must do a better job of listening both BEFORE AND AFTER he speaks.
I hope this is helpful. And I hope it provokes some thoughtful, respectful conversations.
*I am not, of course, speaking for ALL African Americans since we don't all think alike. But, like many demographic groups, we have a strong consensus on many issues and, based upon my own observations and experience, I believe that my view on this is held by more than a critical mass of Black Americans.
@Bakari_Sellers