Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign event in San Antonio, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020. A video of Sanders was edited to make it appear he made racist remarks. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign event in San Antonio, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020. A video of Sanders was edited to make it appear he made racist remarks. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

CLAIM: Newly surfaced video footage shows Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders making racist remarks that “Italians are gangsters, and Irish are drunk, and Jews are greedy, and black people smell” to a group of schoolchildren.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video of Sanders speaking to a classroom full of children in 1987 has been edited to remove remarks that show he was trying to explain how stereotypes and racism work.

THE FACTS: A YouTube video that appears to show Sanders making racist remarks when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, more than 30 years ago has been edited.

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One version of the video has been shared on Facebook and viewed more than 300,000 times since it was posted to YouTube Friday.



“Bernie Sanders doesn’t want you to see these newly uncovered videos of him - turn sound up!” the text on the video advises.



The video’s headline claims to show that Sanders said “black people smell,” along with other racist comments while speaking to a classroom full of children.



It has been edited to leave out that Sanders was explaining to the middle school students how a stereotype is developed and perpetuated about certain groups of people based on their nationality or race. He asks the kids to provide examples of stereotypes they have heard before.



“If you want to deal with a group of people, if you want to do bad things to them, you do what I call, dehumanize them,” Sanders explains to the students. “You make them less than human beings _ they’re not like you, they’re something else. And what you do therefore is you develop a stereotypical image of them _ a stereotype.”



Sanders then lists some stereotypes that he and the students have heard about Polish, Jewish, Irish and black people.



The video was taken in December of 1987 and was part of a public television series called “Bernie Speaks With the Community” that ran between 1986 and 1987 when Sanders was the Burlington mayor, said Lauren-Glenn Davitian, the executive director for CCTV Center for Democracy, which operates Channel 17 in Vermont.



The public access channel uploaded hours of Sanders’ archival footage last spring, Davitian told The Associated Press. She said she has seen people sharing the misleadingly edited footage on social media, including her own Facebook connections.

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This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.



Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536



