At CNN’s Democratic debate on Sunday, moderator Don Lemon asked Bernie Sanders what his racial blind spots are. But Sanders’s response was perhaps a bit more revealing than he intended.
3 tweets that show the problem with Bernie Sanders’s line on white people and ghettos
In his response, Sanders suggested that white people “don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto and to be poor” — a response that also seemed to characterize all minority Americans as impoverished.
Journalist Joy Reid quickly criticized the line on Twitter:
Not sure how the Sanders line that white people in America "don't know what it's like to live in the ghetto" will land. #DemDebate
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 7, 2016
Of course, many white Americans know exactly what it's like to "live in the ghetto." Many, including immigrants have, do and did.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 7, 2016
And most African-Americans are not poor. The AA poverty rate is too high, of course, at about 28%, but that's not most or all.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 7, 2016
As Reid suggested, it’s true that black Americans disproportionately suffer from poverty. But it’s just not true that all minorities’ experience is defined by poverty.
By Jeff Stein
By Dara Lind and Libby Nelson
