My mother, who spent most of my life as an overworked, underpaid political science professor, gave me an American political education rooted in two simple principles.

The first was that it takes moral imagination and courage to name, redress and reckon with the designed structural abuse of poor black Americans. The second: that all “electable” presidential candidates will lack the moral imagination and courage to name, repair and reckon with the structural abuse of poor black Americans.

I want to say that the next Democratic presidential candidate I support will be the next candidate who is actually willing to reckon with the consequences of their lack of moral imagination and courage. But the truth is that I, like many others, let a rigged duopoly, a corrupt oligarchy and all the violent political bogeymen on the right scare me into voting and supporting the supposed lesser of two evils.

I suppose Hillary Clinton’s support of the 1994 crime bill was less evil than supporting a bill called “The School-to-Prison Pipeline Bill That Disproportionately Targets Poor Black Folks”. I suppose Clinton’s petty race-baiting in the 2008 presidential campaign was less evil that just coming out and saying: “Barack Obama might be a radical revolutionary Muslim who could get assassinated if elected President, so support me.” I assume Clinton’s support of welfare reform was less evil than forced sterilization of poor black women with children.

But so what?

One of the problems with the Clinton-era welfare reform Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 was that it excluded support for children – disproportionately poor, black children, my mother observed. “They’re still suffering. A lot of really intelligent people told the Clintons this would happen. I’m just not sure that they cared.” She’s still on track to win black voters by a huge margin. Pandering to black American voters while delivering anti-black policy to racist white Americans is something both Clintons, especially, do extremely well.

As shameful as I find Hillary Clinton and her supposedly left-leaning supporters, though, I’m angriest at the cowardice of Bernie Sanders. Sanders has been completely ineffectual at publicly holding Clinton responsible for her role in engineered American racial terror.



The cowardice goes back 20 years. For example, in 1994, Sanders gave an impassioned speech about why parts of the crime bill were destructive. Then he signed it. Some members of the Black Congressional Caucus gave similar speeches before refusing to sign the bill.

Twenty-two years later, Sanders stood next to Hillary Clinton four times in national debates and never held her responsible for her role in the economic war on black mothers and children in the late 1990s. Sanders knew that Clinton, in her memoir Living History, wrote of PRWORA: “I agreed that [Bill Clinton] should sign it and worked hard to round up votes for its passage.”

Sanders refused to publicly hold her accountable knowing what welfare reform did to our communities, knowing that 38% of black children in the nation live in poverty, knowing that white folks have 13 times the net wealth of black folks, and knowing that single black women have a median wealth of $100 compared to single white women, with a median wealth of $41,000. In spite of all of this, I voted for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday because I, like Sanders and Clinton, am a political coward with little moral imagination.

As the New York numbers came in and it became clearer that the Sanders campaign was over, some Clinton supporters who I love tried to convince me that voting for Clinton in November is the sensible only option for black folks on the left.

My grandmama told me it’s time to give a trifling woman used to dealing with a trifling man a shot at the American presidency. One of my colleagues, also critical of Clinton, pointed to Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Earned Income Credit as proof that “in addition to all the deplorable stuff, she’s done some good things, too”. Another colleague said: “I think the stakes are too high for voter apathy.”

Neither my grandmama, nor my colleagues, are wrong.

We absolutely need a moratorium on trifling presidential men for a few decades. And yes, Clinton has championed some public policy that created healthy choices for poor American children. I know Clinton will ensure the right to choose for American women. I know Clinton will extend environmental protection policies that help protect our most economically vulnerable communities. I know that Muslims who want to enter the country will be treated with more dignity under Clinton.

But isn’t all that exactly what so-called progressive Democrats are supposed to do? They are not, under any circumstance, supposed to engineer black American death, destruction and suffering and never reckon with the consequences of their engineering.

This is exactly what Hillary Clinton, and really every Democratic president before her, has done.

Saying “I’m sorry for the consequences that were unintended and have had a very unfortunate impact on people’s lives” is not reckoning. Saying “institutional racism” is not reckoning. Saying “super predator” was a “poor choice of words” is not reckoning. Clinton, like every presidential candidate before her, has an amazing tolerance for black suffering.

I want to believe a loving political revolution is possible if we get the right candidate in the White House. But a political revolution sanctioned by a major party president is not a political revolution, which is partially why Barack Obama’s cowardly criticism of Black Lives Matter organizers for not quietly sitting at his table is more proof that young black activists are politically changing the nation in spite of our tepid Democratic class.

I will vote for Hillary Clinton in November only if she faces her history of punishing and disciplining vulnerable black Americans. If she does not have the courage to reckon with her role in engineered black American suffering, I will vote for a third-party candidate, or I will not cast a vote for the president at all.

This is not apathy. This is not a threat. This is an acceptance that Hillary Clinton and the rest of these morally challenged politicians will politically value our black lives as much as they value our black votes when, and only when, we courageously cease being electoral accomplices in our own political death and destruction.