I think I know what the whites would do. (And for the sake of consistency to our little thought experiment, I’ve referred to them as “the whites”, because to really switch places with black people, you have to be seen as a slice of a group, rather than an individual.)

They’d riot in the streets (Detroit in 1943 is a local example). They’d commit domestic terrorism (Ku Klux Klan, church bombings during the Civil Rights era, Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City, Dylan Roof in Charleston). They’d posse up and take over federal buildings (Oregon, 2016). They’d rush to join militias (post Ruby Ridge and Waco). They’d bemoan their fate on the internet, call in to talk radio, and propagate a bunch of conspiracy theories. And they’d buy guns, lots and lots of guns. These are all things white people have done or still do, despite the fact that they haven’t been on the bottom of the social ladder for the last few hundred consecutive years.

And, if the social order was reversed, some would organize, protest, and vote. Many would appeal to the more compassionate members of black society for help. But one thing they wouldn’t do is listen to black people tell them “things are getting better, be patient.”.

And what would black people do with their newfound power if this switcheroo occurred? That’s tough to say, but they don’t have nearly the nasty track record that white people have. But we do know that oppressed people don’t always react with equivalent brutality when the tables are turned, (for example, South Africa, post apartheid).

If internet comment sections are to be believed, “black people are more racist than white people nowadays!”. Perhaps these netizens are misconstruing awareness of race with racism. Most black people have no choice but to be race-aware. “But race is a social construct”, the internet bellows. However it came to exist, it’s here now.

Blacks are more racist, hmmm? There just isn’t a black equivalent to the Ku Klux Klan, the Oklahoma City bombing, the slave trade, the abandonment of Reconstruction, the terrorism and lynchings, Jim Crow Laws, mass incarceration, disenfranchisement, or stop-and-frisk. A century and a half later, there aren’t thousands of streets and statues commemorating the leaders of a war fought for black people to retain the right to own white people. There is no black Strom Thurmond or George Wallace.

If the only analogs you can come up with are Louis Farrakhan, the Reginald Denny attack, the assassinations of several police officers, the Black Hebrew Israelites, and the black-fist afro pick, you have to concede the point. (And sorry, but Beyonce’s Superbowl performance doesn’t make the cut. There’s a reason there wasn’t a black KKK chapter endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, but the White Panther Party was created in Detroit/Ann Arbor at the suggestion of Black Panther Party leader Huey Newton.)

The people most impacted by race in America (African Americans, Natives, Jews, Hispanics, Arabs) won’t be the ones who start, or attempt to start, a race war. It’s the disaffected whites who are the threat.

The people most impacted by race in America won’t be the ones to attempt to start a race war.

So, if we accept that black people behave objectively better than white people, what’s the reason? Are they genetically superior, endowed from birth with levels of patience, calm, and empathy that white people just can’t hope to emulate? Ummmm, probably not.

A Tale of Two Contracts

Today, as white optimism is dipping, black optimism is rising, which indicates how big the gap between the black and white experience in America really is. I’d posit that the reason that blacks behave better than whites is that the two groups have different expectations.

The white contract is the American Dream; the notion that those who work hard and utilize their talents will be rewarded, and that they will be guaranteed the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The black contract is the American Dream, Deferred. This contract stipulates that with each passing generation, more and more black people will be able to sign the white contract.

At this moment, the black contract is still in tact. Ignoring the setback of the Great Recession, more black people are participating in the American Dream than ever before. But the white contract is broken. Whites are waking up to something that black people have known for a long time: hard work and talent aren’t always enough to guarantee success.

The breaking of the first contract has fueled the anger that gives us today’s populism, represented on the left by Sanders and on the right by Trump, and to a lesser degree Cruz and Rubio. The upholding of the second contract is what fuels support for the patient and pragmatic reforms advocated by Hillary Clinton.

The Color of Populism

Black populism must work within the American system, whereas white populism can change the American system. Black populism can’t hurt large numbers of whites, but white populism can hurt large numbers of blacks.

Bernie Sanders’ income equality movement, and Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again”, both speak to average white people, as they are both paths to return what non-rich whites have been losing over the last couple of decades, be it wealth, or a sense of superiority. Bernie hopes to pry back wealth from the upper 1%, and Trump promises to pry back jobs, factories, and respect from China and Mexico.

Humans are strange creatures, ones that feel worse about a loss than they feel good about an equivalent gain, which leads us to our next point.

Black voters value viability more than white voters.

(Before votes were cast in the 2008 primaries, Hillary Clinton had a 24% lead over Barack Obama with black voters. This all changed once he proved himself by winning Iowa, which is 92% white. With a victory in the Hawkeye State, the floodgates were opened, and the black vote poured into Obama’s column, giving him a 28 point lead over Hillary in this demographic.)

Today, the accepted conventional wisdom says that Hillary Clinton is much more electable than Bernie Sanders. (Some polls suggest Bernie would win in head-to-heads against Republican candidates and that Hillary would lose, but the comparison isn’t apt: Hillary Clinton has been demonized by the GOP for more than 20 years, whereas Sanders hasn’t had the Republican fear-and-loathing-machine pointed at him in any significant way… yet.)

If, by some miracle, every policy of Bernie Sanders was adopted, I believe that blacks would gain more than if every policy of Hillary Clinton was adopted. So why are white Democrats supporting Bernie Sanders so much more than black Democrats? Black Democrats have more to lose from a Trump/Cruz/Rubio administration than white Democrats.

So, although Sanders’ policies may be tantalizing to many, not all groups are as willing to gamble their vote on him. Yesterday, as I walked through my black, riot-free city to get to my polling location, I stood in line behind mostly black, mostly Democrat voters. I entered my booth, and voted for Bernie. And most of my fellow voters entered their booths, and voted for Hillary. And I campaigned for Bernie for the next ten hours, soaking up sunshine, knowing that either way, things will probably work out okay for me, and with some understanding of why other people on my team don’t see things the way that I see them.

Ben Duell Fraser tweets from @BDCanuck, and is thinking about bringing back the Detroit news & politics podcast, Slash Detroit. He was born in Canada, raised in Detroit, and ponders identity from an odd perspective.