So the Twitter challenge was:

“if you like ‘the squad’ and hate bernie, please share why! i think saying it out loud will help you realize it’s at least a little silly. or maybe it’ll give the rest of us something to think about, who knows” 

Putting an answer in 240 characters really was tough. The people who responded with some version of “Bernie really had no position on #BlackLivesMatter” got two basic responses:

1. Bernie has gotten much better on that subject
2. Bernie’s programs will really benefit Black people

It is that second answer - invariably given by a white person - that I find so problematic and that I don’t think yields to a tweet-length rejoinder… unless it is calling that white someone out for being so certain they understand racism better than Black people do.

Socialism in America has historically stumbled on the issue of race. Last year at this time I suggested  that Bernie knows this and that it accounts for his move to Vermont half a century ago. I wrote:

In Vermont (95% white) he could talk about labor and capital without talking about race. Brooklyn, where Bernie grew up, is -- by contrast -- 36% white, 35% African American, 20% Latino and 12% Asian. Roughly half the people speak a language other than English when they are in their homes.

Those numbers actually understate the reality. In 1968 the African American population of Vermont was 0.2%. Even today it is only 1%, third lowest in the country after Idaho and Wyoming. But Bernie Sanders was not the first person who decided that his class analysis was clouded by discussion of race. He won’t be the last.

A century ago Eugene V. Debs ran for President of the United States on the Socialist Party line. He didn’t get out to campaign because he was locked up in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for his opposition to World War 1. Debs was an opponent of racism in America and in the Socialist Party. He famously wrote: “The man who seeks to arouse prejudice among workingmen is not their friend. He who advises the white wage-worker to look down upon the black wage-worker is the enemy of both." 

There were explicit racists in the Socialist Party of Debs’s day. Victor Berger, the Socialist congressman from Milwaukee, was one. Kate Richards O’Hare, the Socialist candidate for Senator of Missouri was another. Debs said that this view was a “stench in the nostrils of honest men.”

It is important to note that this isn’t American exceptionalism. Throughout the imperialist countries there were people calling themselves “socialist” - leaders of Socialist Parties even - who believed in the “civilizing mission” of colonialism. That’s right, they claimed to be anticapitalist while demanding the wages of whiteness. One hundred years ago those countries were overwhelmingly white and so they could pretend to be parties of the “working class” as if the laboring people in the colonies were something else. Today these countries are home to millions of people from their former colonies and those who object are all open racists. But not here.

But what about the Debs camp? Surely in an era of open and violent disfranchisement, of forcible segregation, of frequent public lynching any socialist who believed in human equality would have spoken out against the structure of white supremacy? No. Here’s Debs himself again:

I have said and say again that, properly speaking, there is no Negro question outside of the labor question—the working class struggle. Our position as Socialists and as a party is perfectly plain. We have simply to say: “The class struggle is colorless.” The capitalists, white, black and other shades, are on one side and the workers, white, black and all other colors, on the other side

Nothing about lynching. Nothing about phony literacy tests or poll taxes. Nothing about segregation. And it all sounds terribly familiar, too. When Bernie supporters say “He is pursuing social programs that would improve the lives of vast majority of black people” they are making the exact same point as Debs, that the class struggle is all we need.

But it just isn’t so. Ever since Trump’s election we have been hectored by pundits about a “white working class” as a rationale for shutting up about racist violence and atrocities against refugees at our southern border. These pundits claim to be personally opposed to racism and xenophobia, but they talk about the danger of antagonizing this "white working class." Here are my thoughts about that “class.” These people clearly believe that stopping the horrors of white supremacy is of secondary importance to… well, to whatever they think is primary. They are clearly willing to sacrifice the lives of people of color to some value that they hold more highly. This goes beyond white privilege to white supremacism.

The history of the United States shows a repeated unwillingness to include Black people, Natives, Mexican Americans and Asians when the government was supporting families and enterprises, whether that was with land in the 19th century or with farm products and jobs in the 20th. Instead, the courts supported robbery from them. The result is monstrous discrepancies in generational wealth. But people of color are asked to believe that this time will be different. 

I am in favor of Medicare for All.

I am in favor of extending free public education through college.

I am in favor of a $15 minimum wage.

I am in favor of a job guarantee, expanded Social Security and a Green New Deal.

But when racial justice is sixteenth on your platform and when most of the details deal with general economic and environmental issues, I question the depth of your understanding and commitment.

I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primary. If we were having the 2020 primary today, I would likely vote for him again. But I am underenthusiastic. By contrast, I am very enthusiastic about Representatives Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, and Ocasio-Cortez. They are outspoken and active in support of economic and environmental justice. They are also women. They are also Palestinian, Somali, African American and Puerto Rican. I don’t have to insist that they “marched with Dr. King” fifty-plus year’s ago or wonder whether they really understand American racism. They live it every day.

So I don’t “hate Bernie” but that’s why I prefer “the squad.” Maybe you can put that in 240 characters. I can’t.