THREAD
My parents, Bernie & Biden are the same age, same generation. My parents were (both died of #cancer, sadly) Socialists. For a while my father was a Communist. They were poor--very poor. Both went to college on scholarships & were Civil Rights workers. I admired them.
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My maternal grandmother was my only grandparent to finish high school. The others all had to start working at 8th grade. My parents were dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. We were stuffing envelopes as pre-schoolers. My parents never left to move to a white enclave.
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I understand Bernie is an activist. But my parents, my family, were Civil Rights WORKERS. They never left the movement. They co-founded a Civil Rights group.Our church was all about the movement. Our family's friends were all about the movement. It was their life. Night & day.
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I was raised in this work and in this activism. We lived in the same black neighborhood I moved back to when I came back to Philly from the South, NYC and London. My parents lived their politics and I live mine. Vermont is America's whitest state. Philly is majority black.
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I grew up meeting black men and women my parents worked with who I later recognized in history books. I am telling this story because I have always agreed with Bernie's politics, but where is his activism? Where are his close personal activist friends like my parents had?
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Why aren't Bernie & John Lewis friends? Who in Congress has as long an activist history as Lewis? Why did Bernie say he & Clyburn don't share the same politics? Why was Elijah Cummings working with Elizabeth Warren, not Bernie? These are real questions I have. You should, too.
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I am not saying Bernie hasn't done important work--he has. But it is not a revolution. What my parents and their friends and John Lewis were doing--THAT was revolution. And Bernie fled that for a secure and safe life on the land in beautiful, isolated, rural white Vermont.
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I joined the domestic Peace Corps in college. I spent time in the rural South and teaching literacy in prisons. I was an AIDS activist for years in ACT UP and Queer Nation. I got arrested a lot as a teenage activist and later. Now I am a #disability rights activist.
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In my experience and my parents' experience activism is a 24/7 endeavour. And the people you work with are your extended family, your friends, the people who sustain you. I get that not everyone is warm and cuddly and activism/injustice engenders anger. I am angry all the time
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But can you be part of an activist movement if you are disconnected from the people it serves? Can you be anti-racist if you aren't living among black and brown people and seeing race privilege up close? I see it. The 2 schools in my hood are 100% black & rank at 1 out of 10.
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As I said, I support Bernie's politics, but I agree with Warren: he doesn't get it done. My parents got it done. I have gotten it done. My concern is that Bernie has not made alliances with people who can help him get things done as president, like Hillary had.
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As Harris said on Thursday, she and Warren had been working together years before either was in the Senate. They had built an alliance. We all know Hillary had built alliances since she worked with the UFW in college. Where and with whom are Bernie's alliances?
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I am of course just one journalist, one activist, one voter. My story is just one story. But it is a snapshot from the same world Bernie has claimed ownership of. And I think it raises very real questions for our future.
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