I am a black American woman from a working class and poor background. I can never separate those identities; they operate all at once. Though it’s critical to create a community where working class people and black people can coexist and share resources, I know that, even if we operate in a class struggle where I’ve achieved parity with white middle-class workers, I’ll still occasionally experience racism in some form about my body in public spaces. Henry Louis Gates was arrested outside his own home in 2009 because his Cambridge neighbor didn’t recognize him and called the police. He wasn’t new to the neighborhood. He teaches at Harvard.

When a white person says they don’t see race, that’s racist: sameness is an erasure when stark numbers – like the disproportionate police killings of black people – show that we don’t all exist in the world with equal safeguards and privileges. Black Lives Matter is a vision for valuing the lives of black and brown people, for whom a trip to work for the fair wages for which we all fought for can end with a black woman in a body bag from a botched traffic stop (and the only reason we know it was botched because there was a dashboard camera and a body camera video to prove it).

So when I was following a Twitter discussion between an African American, progressive Black Lives Matter supporter (and a likely Sanders supporter) and a white, progressive Sanders supporter, I felt my anger start to rise when the white progressive referred to Black Lives Matter as “your movement”. They were tweeting about the controversial protest action initiated by two women in Seattle: the African American acquaintance stated that the purpose of the protest was to advance the visibility and message of police violence black and brown communities face; the other vehemently responded that the action alienates the very candidate that would support “your movement”.

It’s always only “your movement” when the movement centers on racism and critiques of structural racism with American civil society; it’s “our movement” when it focused on economic inequality.

But it’s too simple to view class struggle without constantly acknowledging the kind of disproportionate terror and discrimination people of color face as workers and citizens demanding equal protections. The 25,000-plus masses that attend Sanders rallies are mostly white, and from following a series of comments and discussions on social media, it seems that many are ignorant to how income inequality, fair wages, housing opportunities and education overlap with disproportionate levels of discrimination that black and brown communities experience. Racism and capitalism are fire and air. They cannot exist without the other. Social democrats may ideologically align with black issues and causes on the surface but they feel loathed to apply a critical analysis of racism on the same footing as their class one.

Jennifer Roesch, writing for the Jacobin, rightly and presciently points out this cognitive dissonance:

‘Economic inequality’ is an inadequate phrase to capture the sheer brutality of this process, and the idea that racial inequality is a symptom of it fails to capture the dynamics by which capitalism was established in the United States and by which it is sustained. Racism is not merely a product of economic inequality, but also part of how that inequality is produced and maintained. It is so woven into the fabric of capitalism that the system itself must be dismantled. But at the same time, a socialist project in this country can only be successful if it is accompanied by a struggle for black liberation.

My anger at white progressive responses with efforts to engage Sanders and his supports on race issues – like with the Seattle protest anger – is an old one, rooted in previous discussions and electoral cycles, where I’ve been on the receiving end of good, well-meaning white folk who insist that my priorities are flawed because I demand the inclusion of an analysis of racism in the struggle for equality when I “should” really center it on the identity of the worker and worker’s rights. In past heated exchanges – before I was overpowered by the bellicose booming voice of a white male ally or bro, and I checked out – what was revealed in that exchange is how many people view race and class as separate things in American society.

Labor unions have a noble history of fighting for fair wages and conditions for American workers – but, like every American story, they have a spotty and questionable history in allowing blacks and women equal opportunity to participate and compete for wages and work. Early in the American Federation of Labor’s history, union membership for black workers was excluded. That policy gradually ended through the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization in 1935; yet, as late as the early 2000s, I witnessed community board members from Harlem in New York City insist that recruitment by trade unions for local black Harlem residents remained lackluster and ineffectual.

Sanders participated in a critical moment in our history; he marched with Martin Luther King 50 years ago, as his usually white supporters like to remind African American liberals at every opportunity. I can’t tell you decade by decade precisely what his civil rights record has been since; I’m inclined to believe that his voting record has shown great consistency, from voting to renew the voting rights act to supporting civil rights and fair housing protections. I’ve felt and believe him to be an ally. However, I think as a voter considering his candidacy to be the next American president, I’m asking him to show me evidence of his depth of commitment to my concerns for criminal justice reform by directly speaking to this moment where criminal justice reform and income inequality intersect.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest At a rally Monday night in Los Angeles, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pledged to fight harder than any other candidate to end institutional racism

Arguably, Sanders was less of the target of the message from the Netroots and Seattle Black Lives Matter protesters than were his supporters and their professed allyship. Those Seattle supporters, for instance, proceeded to prove the protesters’ point when they produced a counter chant to drown out the message from possible and probable future BLM protests at Sanders rallies: “Which side are you on?”

(Which Side Are You On? is a song written by Florence Reece during the Harlan County coal miner’s strike in 1931, which was also sung during the Civil Rights Movement – notably during the Selma marches – and, most recently, adapted in the art protest action by folks in St Louis after the Mike Brown murder.)

Sanders has adopted the language from the movement to articulate his vision to address this criticism, but it falls short of defining specific actions to dismantle structural racism with any real clarity. Former Maryland governor and fellow democratic candidate Martin O’Malley, whose actual record in criminal justice is worthy of intense scrutiny, has put forth a tangible plan that actually speaks to the intersections of income equality and criminal justice reform. O’Malley, whose public appearance last month was also “disrupted” by Black Lives Matter protests, has often more adeptly responded to criticism from movement leaders and actors than Sanders.

Sanders’s base of supporters display a rather simplistic understanding of the stakes that black voters – and specifically, black progressives – feel in this moment. Their critiques are paternalistic in character, most notably from Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan, who charged “don’t piss on your best friend”, to others who provide a truncated and myopic history lesson of liberal support for black causes that drip with condescension and the presumption of blacks’ loyalty for their past efforts, even though the crisis for black and brown communities has not abated. And within those critiques demonizing Black Lives Matter protesters and sympathizers, many white progressives reveal their near-religious simplicity, embracing the gospel that wealth redistribution will magically erase racism, bias and difference.

Such white progressives should re-read Martin Luther King Jr’s A Letter From a Birmingham Jail before commenting, and meditate on King’s meaning of the “silence of good people”. I’d ask that, instead of demanding black voters’ unquestioning loyalty to Sanders, they interrogate what racism is before demurring to a class analysis that still leaves my working-class family members dead in the street.

