Bernie Sanders hires new black press secretary (who supports BLM)

[Famous Mortimer]

... and is also named "Sanders":

Bernie Sanders Hires Black Lives Matter Supporter as Press Secretary

Symone Sanders is helping the Vermont Senator address racial inequality

When ​Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders last month expressed frustration with the Black Lives Matter protesters who've shut down his rallies, the presidential candidate risked alienating a disenfranchised group of people he has long professed to be aligned with. Activists then criticized Sanders – whose constituency is 95 percent white but who has always been a supporter of civil rights –  and he responded by becoming more vocal in his outcry against police brutality and a need for criminal justice reform. Now he has also hired Symone Sanders, a young black activist and Black Lives Matter supporter, as his campaign's national press secretary, Buzzfeed reports​. She issued her first public statement at a rally at the University of Washington campus on Saturday, giving a passionate speech that pegged Sanders as an ally of the Black Lives Matter movement who will seek to end for-profit prisons and address racial inequality in America.



Symone told Buzzfeed that Sanders hired her three week ago, after she shared some suggestions on how to improve. "One of my suggestions, he took it and ran with it on Meet the Press, is that racial inequality and economic inequality are parallel issues," she said.

She also urged him to shift his focus to "educating America, the community, letting people know who Bernie Sanders is and what he's about," as opposed to "just, 'Oh, I fought for civil rights and I protested and I sat at the lunch counters.' That's important and that's great but that was 50 years ago and he has a lot more to stand on than just what he did 50 years ago."

The campaign has also followed up with a detailed "Racial Justice" page that prioritizes the physical, economic, political, and legal barriers, framed as types of violence, that people of color face.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a44619/bernie-sanders-symone-sanders

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/10/bernie-sanderss-ambassador-to-black-voters-hits-the-ground-running

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Excellent choice for the coming movement that will derail Hillary's campaign.

Get people educated about who Bernie Sanders is and what he's about? But don't talk about his history with the civil rights movement? How are those two things different? How are they mutually exclusive? "teach people about who you are but don't talk about your personal history or any of the stuff you've done" The criticisms of Bernie Sanders are all ridiculous and all about wording, although the people making them aren't even clear about what kind of wording they want besides his need to shout the bumper sticker slogan "Black Lives Matter"

[Famous Mortimer]

This is blatant pandering to blacks and if Clinton did it she'd be attached mercilessly.

Like I said before:

What an unbelievably patronising thread. Hardly any better than the "still on the plantation" rhetoric you hear from the right. The idea that black people will vote for someone just because you show people a couple of pictures of them and Jesse Jackson together is patently absurd and takes the audience for easily swayed simpletons.

It's clear that Sanders' approach to appealing to black voters is highly superficial and will not work.

Talking about issues doesn't work.

Straight up pandering  doesn't work.

So how DO you win the Black vote?

Apparently the only way is to be related to previous Democratic president and have 100% name recognition.

[Famous Mortimer]

This is clearly pandering as already has been said, so I don't need to elaborate. One doesn't win the black vote without having previous experience doing so. Vermont is only 1% Black, which means Sanders has probably encountered very few black voters. When you are an unknown entity to a bloc of voters and only begin to reach out to them when you need their voters, it tends to be a very hard sell.

No. This is categorically not the reason. Unless you can prove it to me by showing me a way in which Hillary Clinton, who does have experience campaigning to Black people, is better at reaching Black voters than Sanders. Don't just say "she does better" I know that. I'm asking you a concrete example of HOW she's better than Bernie at talking to Black people. Unless you can give me an example of a specific way, it must be assumed that the reason for her success is name recognition/being married to Bill and nothing else.

[Famous Mortimer]

This is clearly pandering as already has been said, so I don't need to elaborate. One doesn't win the black vote without having previous experience doing so. Vermont is only 1% Black, which means Sanders has probably encountered very few black voters. When you are an unknown entity to a bloc of voters and only begin to reach out to them when you need their voters, it tends to be a very hard sell.

The more I read this, the more ridiculous it is. Who reaches out to voters before they run for office? How did Hillary do that? Sanders actually did reach out to Black people long before he ran for office but it was so long ago that people mock him whenever he brings it up. There's literally nothing he can do to please you.

[Famous Mortimer]

So you admit that Sanders hasn't done anything wrong and he's essentially screwed with the Black vote regardless?

[Famous Mortimer]

So you admit that Sanders hasn't done anything wrong and he's essentially screwed with the Black vote regardless?

I never said he did anything wrong. My point was about name recognition.

No. Your point was about how Sanders can't win the Black vote because Vermont only has 1% Black people.