Most people I talk with don’t think they’re the same thing, but they do think they’re a bit symbiotic in many circumstances. Here’s an actual argument I’ve heard about Michael Brown (RIP).
Person One: Brown was forced into being around cops by being disadvantaged in various ways including the lack of free higher education, etc.
Person Two: Bullshit, that had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, Brown was already enrolled in college.
Person One: Exactly, but how was he attempting to pay for it? By selling illegal cigarettes. If Brown had been able to go to college for free and also had other job opportunities that Sanders wants to provide for our nation’s youth – He never would have been put into that situation with cops in the first place.
Now that, of course, doesn’t eliminate racist cops, nor institutionalized racism by entire departments. However, what education and jobs does do is remove black youth from plenty of dangerous encounters with police.
Meanwhile, Sanders has already said that he wants to begin programs that bring people from within their own communities into their own local police forces. That way you have the community policing itself and people will personally know the officers and their families in the community. This way a cop doesn’t just see people within the community as random strangers and vice versa.
Also, keep in mind that economic justice is not an alternative to racial justice — it is a fundamental component of it. I think this article explains that concept quite well:
What Black Lives Matter gets wrong about Bernie Sanders
Beyond that, it’s up to you and me. It’s up to grassroots Americans getting involved in local, state and federal government. When there’s a problem with racism exposed, we need to do more than simply protest in the street, we need to get involved in local government, elect and inject good people that we vet as a community.
If a corrupt, local PD and politicians resist with unfair maneuvers and/or intimidation, etc. — That’s where the federal government (enabled via Sanders and grassroots movements at a state and federal level) will need to step in like the feds have done in the past and clean house.
We need to make racism in Police Departments not only a fireable offense, but also better communication between departments to keep offenders out of positions of authority. Not to mention, we need much better overseers at state and federal levels with more enforcement teeth to keep tabs on racism, corruption, etc. – and, here’s the kicker, we need much more transparency in government.
There’s also the reforms of the privatized prison complex, mandatory minimums, addressing mass incarceration via our failed drug war, etc. that will go an incredibly long way into making black lives matter much more than they do today within our current, fucked up, draconian system.
This just touches the surface, but this should give some ideas of what we’ll see with a Sanders presidency. There’s a huge grassroots dynamic that’s going to be needed. Sanders can’t bring that himself. We need to evolve as a nation, as a people. The great news is Sanders’ previous grassroots experience will assist him in enabling us to enable him and ourselves.
Please name the last candidate that even tried to enable average grassroots Americans to get involved within their own government after being elected? You really can’t. It’s fairly unprecedented and, frankly, we’re going to have to strategize some of this as we go along. Then again, that’s any administration for the most part as new challenges appear over the decades.
Now, none of this means shit if Bernie Sanders doesn’t get elected in the first place, so I’ve got work to do and I’m outta here tonight.
EDIT: Whoops forgot to add Sanders platform link:
Racial Justice
With a total outsider’s viewpoint, they looked like agent provocateurs TBH.
