Nuance And A Dirty Bomb

Part of Bernie Sanders answer to the question of what blind spots he has in regard to race was that as a white person he could not know what it is like “to live in a ghetto.” In order to understand Bernie's answer and the reaction to it I think we need to look at the origin and definition of the word: after a brief discussion about the possibility of “Ghetto” having a Hebrew origin, NPR said that “... whatever the root language, the word's original meaning was clear: "the quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted," as the OED puts it. In the 16th and 17th centuries, cities like Venice, Frankfurt, Prague and Rome forcibly segregated their Jewish populations, often walling them off and submitting them to onerous restrictions.”


During the Civil Rights era there was both du jure and de facto segregation which restricted where African Americans could live. The word ghetto was frequently used to describe where African Americans were allowed to live at that time. Indeed, Bernie Sanders participated in demonstrations against such restrictions. I am sure his outrage over that segregation is very much a part of his consciousness to this day, and I am sure it influenced his reply. Now I am about to wonder into a bit of a mine field but bear with me. Many African Americans seemed to take umbrage to Bernie's answer (See Joy Reid ).  It is not for me to criticize African Americans for their objections or to try to speak for them, so consider the following simply my attempt to grasp why they object to what Bernie Sanders said. It is certainly understandable that middle class African Americans take pride in how far they have come and what they have accomplished. I can see why they object to a stereotype of black people living in impoverished areas amidst the squaller that is too often a reality for so many people, black and white. But I do not think Bernie used the term Ghetto because he is out of touch; it think it is more a matter of him being caught off guard by the question and framing an in-artful reply. While I realize that nuance matters, I do not think we would call a singer tone deaf for being off key on a few rare occasions.


What makes housing segregation more difficult to address today is that it is determined as much by class and wealth as it is by race. Having said that, however, I should also point out that race is still a factor for the following reasons: as Bernie Sanders has frequently pointed out the distribution of wealth is not just a class issue but a racial issue as well because there is a wide racial wealth gap. African Americans, through no fault of their own, have a much more difficult time rising to middle class status, and they were hit particularly hard by Bush's great recession! Many more African Americans lost their homes in that recession than white people did, and there is a discrimination in lending that makes it very difficult for those dispossessed African Americans to climb back up on their feet again. We may not call them Ghettos anymore but there are still predominately black neighborhoods, and far too many of them are impoverished. I think if Bernie could have a do-over he would say he does not know what it is like to face the economic and physical hardships that are too often a result of racism.

Now we come to another part of the debate that did not redound to Bernie Sander's advantage. It is Hillary Clinton's use of the auto bailout controversy, which I describe as Hillary's dirty bomb and Huffington Post describes as 'Gotcha' Politics:

Politico summarized: "Sanders was supportive of the bill that would have bailed out the auto companies. So while Sanders might not have voted for the bill that ultimately provided funds to the auto industry, he did support bailing out the automakers."

But two days before the Michigan primary Clinton turned Sanders' opposition to the Wall Street bailout into a Sanders vote "against the auto bailout."

Gotcha!

Some in the media mistakenly reported that Sanders replied talking about Wall Street instead of responding about the auto bailout, thinking these were separate bills. For example, Richard Wolffe at The Guardian, "Sanders, standing in Flint, had no answer for the vote - other than to retreat into his corner opposing Wall Street's bailout."

But overall the media has tried to correct the record. Media reactions to Clinton's gambit range from calling it a "gamble" to "somewhat disingenuous" to "twisted" to "quite a stretch."

Michigan's Michael Moore, known for the 1989 "Roger and Me" documentary about General Motors and Flint, even tweeted that "Hillary lied."

Unfortunately, as Joy Reid said most of the press coverage in Michigan does not include any fact checking of Hillary's deceptive assertion, and explanations from Bernie and others about his voting record on the Auto Makers Bailout are not resonating with most of the voters. Lets face it, people who were impacted by the bailout are not policy wonks who are going to listen to complex explanations. What they remember is Hillary's assertion! This was pure demagoguery on Hillary's part! She dropped a dirty bomb, and she interrupted Bernie's reply to hinder his thought process and make his answer less adroit! This is a piss poor way to unify a party, particularly when trust is one of the issues that already hurts her!