Why Blacks Vote for "Pragmatism"

http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/4639
Date Written:  2016-05-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2016
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21379

African Americans are probably the most pragmatic voting bloc in the country. African Americans more than any other ethnic group understand white supremacy, racism and class exploitation.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The fact that Bernie Sanders is from a mostly white liberal state, Vermont, is not why Blacks have failed to rally to his banner. The reality is that Blacks in the Old Confederacy are the most realistic about what is possible to win in today's rising white racist backlash.

African Americans live with state-sanctioned violence and extra-legal terror and discrimination. There is less hypocrisy about race relations in the Southern states, where "them and us" is crystal clear.

But even in liberal San Francisco, a 2013-2015 study of police traffic stops showed that Blacks are pulled over and searched four times as much as whites. African Americans are less than six percent of the city's residents. Whites are 44% (April 8, 2016 San Francisco Chronicle). San Francisco cops are as trigger happy and shoot Blacks and Latinos as "suspects" as much as their comrades in the South.