Ta-Nehisi Coates Blasts Bernie Sanders For ‘Alarming’ Rhetoric On Race

By Daniel J. Solomon September 7, 2017

Ta-Nehisi Coates slammed Bernie Sanders for being far too focused on white working-class voters — at the expense of blacks and other racial minorities.

In an essay for The Atlantic, titled “Donald Trump Is the First White President,” Coates faulted Sanders for using “alarming” and “shocking” language on race, class and the issue of political correctness.

Near the top of Coates’s complaints was the fact that Sanders once parodied the Clinton campaign for its stress on race, saying at a rally last year: “It’s not good enough for somebody to say: ‘Hey, I’m a Latina, vote for me.’ That is not good enough. I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country and is going to take on big money interests.”

Coates credited Hillary Clinton with running a race-conscious campaign, but also blasted her for having used blacks while her husband was president to build electoral support among the white working class.

The Atlantic essay is an excerpt from the upcoming Coates book, “We Were Eight Years in Power.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO