{"id":15665,"date":"2015-07-21T12:27:08","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T19:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15665"},"modified":"2015-07-22T07:14:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T14:14:07","slug":"bernies-record-is-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/21\/bernies-record-is-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie’s Record is Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am still disturbed by the way Bernie Sanders was heckled at Netroots.  He was treated like someone who did not care about black people, humiliated, and shouted down.  However, if you put Bernie’s record, over the years, on the table, it’s clear to see that he has done more for civil and human rights than any other candidate in the presidential field.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"0721Bernie\"Over the past few months, one lingering blemish on Bernie Sanders' candidacy for the Democratic nomination is his indifference to racial justice and civil rights issues.<\/p>\n

But the truth is, Sanders has a 50-year history of standing up for civil and minority rights, as he told the attendants of Netroots Nation after he was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters. Of course, it's understandable that they want to bring attention to the movement…<\/p>\n

…Here are 20 ways Sanders has stood up for civil and minority rights, starting in the early 1950s up to the present year.<\/p>\n

1. Raising Money For Korean Orphans<\/strong>: International solidarity was an unusual concept for any American to have in the 1950s, let alone a high school student. But one of Sanders' first campaigns was to run for class president at James Madison High School in New York City. His platform was based around raising scholarship funds for Korean war orphans. Although he lost, the person who did win the campaign decided to endorse Sanders' campaign, and scholarships were created<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Being Arrested For Desegregation<\/strong>: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was active in both the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1962, he was arrested<\/a> for protesting segregation in public schools in Chicago; the police came to call him an outside agitator, as he went around putting up flyers around the city detailing police brutality.<\/p>\n

3. Marching In March On Washington<\/strong>: Sanders joined the mega-rally called by the leaders of the civil rights movement, a formative event of his youth.<\/p>\n

4. Calling For Full Gay Equality<\/strong>: 40 years ago, Sanders started his political life by running with a radical third party in Vermont called the Liberty Union Party. As a part of the platform, he called for abolishing all laws<\/a> related to discrimination against homosexuality…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n

I have shared just the first four examples.  I urge you to click through for the other sixteen.<\/font><\/p>\n

To be critical of Bernie, he did not have a detailed platform already prepared to deal with systemic racism against blacks.  But it’s the time in candidates’ campaigns that they’re just beginning to cobble their positions on  most issues together.  <\/font><\/p>\n

The simple truth here is that Bernie needed to learn more about the issue.  Had the leaders of the Black Lives* Matter movement sought Bernie out and educated him on what steps need to be taken to deal with systemic racism, I have no doubt that Bernie would have incorporated their positions into his campaign and fought for their positions even after his campaign is over.  That’s how Bernie is.  That is also what MLK would have done, and it would have been a far more productive move than humiliating their most likely ally.<\/font><\/p>\n

*typo corrected<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am still disturbed by the way Bernie Sanders was heckled at Netroots.  He was treated like someone who did not care about black people, humiliated, and shouted down.  However, if you put Bernie’s record, over the years, on the table, it’s clear to see that he has done more for civil and human rights […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}