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If you're like most of us, many people on your social media timelines have been talking about how Bernie Sanders has ignited a political revolution in our nation. A lot of people have considered him to be the future of the Democratic Party. However, political scientist Dave Hopkins of Boston College says that despite leaving office, President Obama and his politics are the future of the Democratic Party, not Bernie Sanders. In an interview with Vox, Hopkins says he believes Obama's version of the party will stick around for a good amount of time. Hopkins said, "It seems like [Obama] will go down in history as the key figure in current Democratic Party politics — he showed how the party's new demographic coalition could come together. If you want to talk about the future of the Democratic Party, that's where it is." Hopkins thinks that Sanders' visible effect on Hillary Clinton's campaign might have allowed for people to overestimate his longevity. "I think Sanders has had a visible effect on the rhetoric of the Clinton campaign, where they clearly took seriously the critique that she was not really liberal enough and responded to Sanders' presence in the race," he said. Hopkins cited Obama's opened relations with Cuba, his transformation of the the healthcare system and more as actions that will have a greater and wide-reaching impact. You can view Hopkins' full interview at Vox. Can’t get enough of Blavity? Sign up for our daily newsletter. READ NEXT: President Obama's "Slow Jam" news with Jimmy Fallon is politically petty and we love...

So, we need talk about the Bernie Sanders campaign. Much can be said about Sanders’ electability, but that’s not what we need to talk about. No, we need to talk about his lack of attention, or seemingly, his lack of desire, to address racial justice issues. Ultimately, this lack of consideration for non-whites has cost his campaign a shot at winning the White House. First, let’s start with the fundamentals of every campaign, both local and presidential, and everything in between. The first step is always, always, figuring out your base. Your base is the lifeblood of your campaign; your base will support you, make calls for you, knock on doors for you, and, most importantly, vote for you. When you’re in a primary campaign, (competing against an opponent in the same political party) your base is often the same as your opponent’s, and the primary becomes a race to see who can secure the base first. Ultimately, whoever secures the base wins the nomination and goes on to compete in the general election. The base of the democratic party is, and has been since the late 1960s, black people. More specifically, we’ve seen that black women vote in higher numbers than any other demographic and, in 2012, this led to Barack Obama being elected for a second term. Inversely, during the 2008 election, Hillary Clinton’s lack of outreach to the base of the Democratic Party (read: black people) led to the demise of her bid to be the party’s nominee. Bernie Sanders and his campaign seem to have missed the entire 2008 election. From the word ‘go,’ this campaign seemed determined to ignore black people in what has been a very futile attempt to attract white progressive voters. These white progressive voters can’t produce a win in any states other than those with large white populations (New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, etc.) It’s not as though the votes of black people have been locked up by the Clinton campaign. Hillary has not done much more to secure the votes of black people than the Sanders campaign. However, Bernie and his campaign have had numerous opportunities to reach out to black people: The demonstrations at Netroots and Seattle and the Forum in Minnesota come to mind first. At these events, he doubled down and decided to leave and/or stand silently while security tried to remove demonstrators. He ignored the questions and demands being lobbed at him by black voters, and instead decided to talk about economics and raising the minimum wage as solutions for the problems addressing the black community. This ignores the real problems. Sandra Bland didn’t die in a jail cell because she didn’t have a job. Mike Brown’s body was not left in the streets of Ferguson, MO for hours on a hot summer day because he didn’t have an education. The unemployment rates in black communities are not almost double that in white communities because the minimum wage is not high enough. However, listening to Bernie Sanders tell it, you’d think it was all because black people don’t get a fair shake from the millionaire and billionaire class. The lack of fortitude to address real issues and to speak out against injustice directly contrasts the portrayal of Sanders that his supporters and campaign have worked to convey. The portrayal of Sanders as a relentless reformer and a principled politician that goes out of his way to fight for what’s right is not what his actions display. The message I’m getting from the Sanders campaign on racial issues can, ironically enough, be summed in a quote that his campaign surrogate Killer Mike used to describe Sanders’ opponent, Senator Clinton: “Hold on, wait a while.” The Sanders campaign strategy has been akin to the Southern Strategy employed by Republicans: Center white people and their anger, and have them work to protect their entitlements despite the fact that no one is trying to take anything away from them. Following Seattle, Bernie made an effort to name those killed by police in his stump speech. He started invoking Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice and others. Although when asked about the cops that shot and killed Tamir Rice not being indicted he said he wasn’t familiar with the details of the case and could only say it was ‘disconcerting’. He released a racial justice plan, which was really just a list of things he thinks are bad with no solutions to those problems. He has, to this date, not released a comprehensive racial justice plan that includes a timeline or list of costs, yet he can release a timeline with costs for breaking up the banks, single-payer healthcare and making colleges free. This has not been a campaign of political revolution, it has been a campaign of half-baked ideas, based in the idea that the issues affecting the black community can be addressed so long as the issues of white progressives are addressed first. The talking points that Bernie has been employing on the campaign trail about black people are just that — talking points. There has been no real action or plan from the campaign to do anything to address the plight of the very people who could be responsible for making him the nominee. It reeks of arrogance and shows a complete lack of understanding. We’re currently in a position where Bernie has little to no chance of winning the Democratic Party’s nomination. A line can be drawn to this fact directly from his lack of black support. Bernie Sanders, his campaign and supporters have spoken often about the need for ‘political revolution,’ but listening to his deafening silence regarding racial issues in America leads me to believe that this revolution would not help the base of the Democratic Party. We’ve seen that ‘trickle-down economics’ doesn’t work, and I, for one, have never been interested in a trickle-down political revolution. Organizer by day, organizer by night. LA native (really). I write to break through oppression and stupidity. Twitter: @oaverette Share this post on Facebook below!   READ NEXT: The Bernie Sanders dap felt around the...

I’ve served time under four presidents; Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Like most junkies, I wasn’t shy about committing petty crimes to support my habit. I kicked heroin for good in 2002, upon my final release from prison, and then went on to earn a BA and an MFA from Arizona State University in 2007 and Columbia in 2012. I currently teach English and creative writing at a couple of community colleges around the Phoenix metro area, drive a cab on weekends, and spend the better part of my measly leisure hours writing and wishing I could vote. Yet despite my accomplishments, my redemption is constantly being called into question. Aside from the have-you-ever-been-convicted-of-a-crime box I must check on every job application, there are the reviews of my first book, a graphic memoir published in 2012. The collective grievance among critics is that I defrauded both Columbia and the Big Banks by lying to them about what I was going to spend some of my financial aid on, even though the practice was widespread among students, especially at Columbia. The price of surviving in New York City, particularly during the summer months, often made these little frauds necessities.   The reviewers took the side of Columbia and the Big Banks; the same banks whose pervasive fraud was so prevalent it had nearly bankrupted the planet a few years before. They were the innocent victims and me the scamming ex-con. Yes, I was taking financial advantage of an Ivy League school and those poor, poor banks. So it’s a shame that I’m not a Bernie Sanders supporter. He’d try to have my loan forgiven his first day in office and the banks boarded up by the second. Redemption complete. But the truth is, I neither want nor need his help. I make my loan payments every month, thank you, and I have relatives who earn a decent living working for a bank. Moreover, I’m an ex-con, which means I’ve done my time. Every day of it. The Clintons have done their time, as well, and earned their shot at redemption. It was last July that former President Bill Clinton, talking about his role in mass incarceration, said, “I signed a bill that made the problem worse and I want to admit it.” It’s the closest any politician has ever come to telling me and millions of other nonviolent drug felons that he or she is sorry. The bill mentioned by Clinton was the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,” and Bernie Sanders voted for it. In fact, Sanders was a senator for four of my five prison sentences. Not once do I remember him rattling my cage. Or indeed, any prisoner’s cage. Nor have I been kind to the Clintons. In an article published in The Baltimore Sun last May titled “Lunch with an ex-con: How about it, Loretta Lynch?”, I took both Clintons and President Obama to task for failing to do enough to not only end mass incarceration, but to humanize felons in the same manner as Pope Francis is wont to do. Criticism, however, should always be constructive. As I told the Clinton Campaign in an email recently: “Dissent is the highest form of flattery.” Which brings us back to the lily-white candidate from a lily-white state and his cadre of (mostly) lily-white upper and middle-income followers, none of whom can figure out why African Americans in the south aren’t feeling the Bern. Indeed, the rhetoric has taken on a we-need-to-go-down-there-and-teach-them-whom-they-should-vote-for tone, and that scares me more than Trump’s open racism. Indeed, Sanders is actually aping Trump: America sucks, the black guy and the bleached blonde screwed it up, and only he can save it. What Sanders and his supporters are missing, aside from their collective whiteness, is that these folks have also done their time. They are African Americans, in the south, where they likely had to work harder than everybody else every step of the way. And yet along comes a career independent on the democratic ticket telling them that their hard work is unnecessary. He would get them stuff for free. Moreover, the stuff-for-free mantra is based on the premise that Sanders, as president, will be able to magically accomplish (massive tax hikes, for instance) what President Obama could only dream about, which isn’t saying much for Obama. Indeed, the implication echoes a time, one year ago this month, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured a cheering Congress on what a simple-minded yet well-meaning president we had. Netanyahu was pointedly aggrieved that Obama had made a deal with Iran; that our duly-elected commander was being duped by evil Muslims and that we all needed to come together as a nation and convince him to mend his obvious obtuseness.   The lesson, of course, is that Netanyahu’s speech is reiterated in the cry of Blue-State white folks preaching to Red-State African Americans about what a great president their maple-syrupy democratic socialist would be. More effective, certainly, than a Wall-Street bought but slightly dim Obama, and scads more than an emailing, war-monger, free-trading capitalist such as Hillary Clinton. What Sander’s followers fail to acknowledge is that both of the Clintons (not to mention Obama) are covered with battle scars from a vindictive and arguably fraudulent Republican Party. Scars that African Americans down south are all too familiar with. When covered with such welts forgiveness comes hard, but it comes nonetheless. This is especially true among kindred souls, along with the fact that full redemption is nearly impossible without it. Matthew J. Parker is the author of the graphic novel "Larceny In My Blood." His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Baltimore Sun, andThe Rumpus, among others. His next book, a novel, is in the final editing process. Share this post on Facebook below!   READ NEXT: #ImWithHer: Why I'll be casting my 2016 vote for...

As we close in on the March 1st Super Tuesday Primary, Hillary Clinton just eked out a major victory over Bernie Sanders in the Nevada Caucus, strengthening her argument that she has the support to carry a general election in November. What was initially supposed to be a smooth victory for Secretary Clinton in Nevada in the months leading up to the Caucus quickly turned into a nail-biter as Bernie Sanders surged in the polls during the past several days. But in the end, it appears that it was the African-American vote that made all the difference. Although the white and Hispanic vote went to Senator Sanders, the African-American vote broke so heavily in Clinton's favor it essentially erased Bernie's lead among other demographics. According to MSNBC Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki, early entrance polls indicated 77 percent of black voters showed up for Hillary Clinton, compared to only 22 percent for Senator Bernie Sanders, a significant three to one difference. There are areas of uncertainty when looking at entrance polls, especially when combined with the fact that voter turnout was the lowest we've seen in almost 12 years. Still, it gives us a useful snapshot into how voters are evolving as the race unfolds. Latest entrance poll breakdown: White: 49-47% Sanders Black: 76-22% Clinton Latino: 53-45% Sanders — Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) February 20, 2016 This is an interesting statistic because it shows that despite Sander's major push to earn the black vote, which includes a Black Barbershop and HBCU Tour, black voters still haven't completely warmed up to his message and are still standing strong for Hillary Clinton. This is a particularly worrying stat for the Sanders camp as the election cycle heads south to South Carolina, because if Hillary's support among black voters holds up like it did in Nevada, this primary contest can potentially turn ugly real quick. For now, Senator Sanders is still the preferred candidate among the younger voters across the board. However, if black millennial voters want to see Sanders win the Democratic Primary over Secretary Clinton, they might have to lock their parents in the broom closet on Super Tuesday and beyond, because it appears that many older black Americans are still with her. Maybe it's time for us to sit our parents down and have "The Talk". Did you like this post? Share it on Facebook below! READ NEXT: Clinton campaign hires black-owned ad agency to reach black...

My momma and I have talked about the current election a lot. The conversations usually start with us agreeing that the country is stuck in some strange, extended episode of The Twilight Zone (Rod Sterling’s original series, no less), wherein an openly racist, ableist, sexist and generally terrible person is leading in the GOP and one of the democratic candidates thinks she can whip and Nae-Nae her way into the black vote. She and I bemoan the condition the political process has found itself in, indicating that my mother, who has 30 years of life on me, can't remember a time when an election has been this ridiculous. Then we conclude that we’ll simply vote for Sanders and move on with our lives. Neither of us are particularly thrilled by that last bit. Sanders is the only candidate I’ve considered voting for since he entered the race but not because I’m especially enthralled by him. It’s because the other candidates are laughable at best and incredibly violent at worst. Sanders is the lesser of evils. It’s a condition that seemed to be shared by President Obama in his race against Romney. I was not particularly in love with Obama (his policies, anyway. On a personal level, I consider Obama to be my favorite uncle who is super smart but also discusses trap music with me). But I was repulsed by Romney’s talk of managing the country in a way that I assume CEOs talk about managing corporations. I feel like picking Sanders is the only thing that makes sense given the other “options.” But Sanders is not perfect. Not even close. I see Sanders as the mature version of many white liberals I’ve encountered; he claims to be down for dismantling white supremacy but completely misses the mark on how to dismantle white supremacy. Ta-Nehisi Coates recently published an article in The Atlantic that perfectly articulates Sanders' shortcomings in the area of white supremacy, citing how Sanders, through his denouncement of reparations, fails to examine the roots of black poverty. Missing the roots is a common problem in most “radical” politics, and it often leads to policies that pacify the effects of white supremacy for a while before ultimately exacerbating them. Job creation and free higher education aren’t going to magically wipe away white supremacy and create a system that no longer socially, politically and economically oppresses black people for being black. They might help, yes, but eventually, they'll give way to a system specifically created for oppressing black people, landing us back into the same socioeconomic positions we have always found ourselves in. We can't rant about inequality without completely analyzing it fully and treating it accordingly. Another issue that gives me pause in regards to Sanders does not directly come from Sanders himself, but from many of his supporters. Sanders seems to have the type of supporters who want to pressure black people into accepting this man as a savior, someone who'll completely overhaul our existence and take us to the Promised Land the second he steps foot into office. They mostly base their opinions on him based on his loud proclamations of what should be common sense during debates and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movements nearly four decades ago. They are the type of people who were hostile to those who interrupted Sanders a few months ago, an incident Coates cites in his article. His supporters are the type to post #FeelTheBern all over Facebook without fully analyzing him as a candidate/politician. They are also the type of people to put on a show of fighting for equality but refuse to be corrected when they say/do something anti-Black. I’m not saying that every white Sanders supporter is like this but you can’t ignore the ones that are. Many of these types of supporters might feel the same desperation and frustration I feel. After all, we're all looking at the prospective candidates and only seeing one that isn’t unbelievably terrible in some way. But this type of behavior is ultimately going to alienate the audience Sanders seems to want to appeal to the most. I’m going to vote for Sanders because he’s the only one who doesn’t actively cause me annoyance or anxiety. But it's a troubling state of affairs when the most “radical” candidate still misses the mark on white supremacy and is falling behind in the polls to a candidate who thinks that changing her logo on Twitter to an image of Rosa Parks sitting on an “H”-shaped bus seat is going to secure her the black vote. Courtney (she/her, they/their) is an aspiring journalist trying to make a way in the South. She hopes to one day dismantle white supremacy and have a flawless fro while doing so. Follow her on Twitter...

On the first day of Kwanzaa, Hillary Clinton changed her Twitter avi in "celebration" of Kwanzaa... https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/680957619897548800 Many black people were really annoyed by this and accused the presidential candidate of pandering... https://twitter.com/vmmassie/status/680919537030705152 https://twitter.com/vmmassie/status/680920462956822528 https://twitter.com/vmmassie/status/680923473749893120 https://twitter.com/atypewritersing/status/680932412587667457 After much criticism, the logo was removed from Clinton's Twitter. But that didn't stop Black Twitter from coupling their humor with memes. And the combination was magical. https://twitter.com/Philosavery/status/680989581966229504 https://twitter.com/IWriteAllDay_/status/681012483507761152 https://twitter.com/awwwchris/status/681019111565045760 https://twitter.com/iMadeSmartCool/status/681010487895703552 https://twitter.com/Taz_and_Bugz/status/681012938430398465 https://twitter.com/KristyT/status/681014502201126913 https://twitter.com/blogdiva/status/681012947859206144 https://twitter.com/ParkerAtiba/status/681006959483465728 https://twitter.com/Wildstiles86/status/681018926403162113 https://twitter.com/Taz_and_Bugz/status/681008599271878656 https://twitter.com/Shell_Syndicate/status/681021829088194560 https://twitter.com/VictorPopeJr/status/681011202047094786 https://twitter.com/HamiltonVines/status/681024381158600704 https://twitter.com/_tyreezy/status/681017304201572353 https://twitter.com/IntergalacticQ/status/681011994607116288 https://twitter.com/TiffanyVW_/status/681016863988539392 https://twitter.com/banderabarter/status/681027527251329025 https://twitter.com/5ftanomaly/status/681025118160556032 https://twitter.com/ParkerAtiba/status/680995344189005824 https://twitter.com/_tyreezy/status/681026628869177344 https://twitter.com/_tyreezy/status/681019077570072576 https://twitter.com/freely_poetic/status/681007859790942208 https://twitter.com/TiffanyVW_/status/681018961694199808 https://twitter.com/ZacLBarnett/status/681130060485648384 What do you think about Clinton's temporary logo and Black Twitter's response? Sound off in the comments...

This presidential election cycle has had historic levels of fanfare and spectacle. From the Republican party’s head clown and biggest liability, Donald Trump, spewing hate speech on loop to the divisive attacks between the Democrats and Bernie Sanders. The candidates have been made memes, gifs and farce while their platforms have survived various levels of scrutiny. This dramatization of politics also reads deeply disheartening to the undeniably visible black resistances covering our nation (and the globe). The “Black Lives Matter” movement, as this iteration of black liberation has been coined, has disrupted the political climate to demand recognition for the daily and systemic violence of black folk in this country. For complicated reasons, the Democratic party has historically been a more visible supporter of Black people, though so many young activists are disappointed by the lack of meaningful engagement by the presidential candidates in this election. That is not to say the candidates haven’t been trying. Sen. Bernie Sanders managed to keep his promise to the Bland family by saying her name in a recent Democratic debate. Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has done a more haphazard attempt to engage young black voters: she’s commodified Rosa Parks in a Twitter icon and even Nae Nae’d on The Ellen Show. It seems that the Democratic candidates are keenly aware of how black millennial voters are necessary. In a recent New York Times piece titled “The Missing Black Millennials,”, Donovan X. Ramsey delineates how black millennials were pivotal to Obama’s election. He states: "The Democratic Party isn’t really at risk of losing these voters to the other party. But it can’t take them for granted." From their high turn-out in the last two elections to their increasingly visible organizing, black millennials are a critical base to engage. However, as Ramsey futher expands, even with the high turnout, many black millenials have been disillusioned by the potential President Obama’s election promises. Ramsey shares: “And while many of us participated in the election of the nation’s first black president, we’ve witnessed what feels like his inability to adequately serve black Americans in the face of continued economic challenges and systematic police brutality.” This speaks to a compounded problem the Democratic party is facing; not only do these individual candidates have to appeal to these needed voices for their campaigns, they have to make the political system a possibility for justice.  As millennials find new ways to organize for rights and safeties and life, many are finding the current political system unavailable to them. From the Supreme Court to law enforcement, to Congress, to the President, black millennials are not seeing potentials of comfort. What could be most frustrating is the dismissal of activists, evident in both language about protests and responses from candidates. Although organizers has amplified black life to a national consciousness, only obscured by willful ignorance, their demands are not abstract. From the student activists who organize their requests and share them nationally to the various campaigns and actions organized daily, black millennials aren’t hiding, nor quiet, nor passive. If only the presidential candidates listened instead of pandered. If only the American political system could provide hope for black folks. If only folks heard us....

"Hillary For 2016." That has been the rallying cry for years now. We've seen "I'm Ready for Hillary" bumper stickers plastered on cars and signs on our neighbors' front lawns. We saw Hillary Clinton constantly tease us with her possible presidential campaign announcement, and we've seen the media tracking her every move since she finally made the announcement. Even now, almost every republican presidential candidate has made negative statements about Hillary, showing that they see her as their main competition — and right now she is. It's been pretty much set in stone that she would run for president. Many democrats are overwhelmed by Hillary's constant news coverage and think she might be their only option. However, this is not the case. Below are the current candidates (other than Hillary Clinton) running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.  1. BERNIE SANDERS Sanders is a registered independent, Senator of Vermont and self-described socialist. Therefore, it's no surprise that he takes a strong stance against big money in politics. As part of his campaign, Sanders challenges the stereotypical republican view of what "family values" mean. To Sanders, family values include paid maternal leave and sick leave for hard-working families. Sanders' campaign is also centered around  income and wealth inequality and action on climate change. Sanders also spoke out about the hate crime in Charleston and did not shy away from the fact that it was an act of racism. Bonus points for him. Maybe he will stand up for the Black community. 2. MARTIN O'MALLEY Former Governor of Maryland, O'Malley stands for most liberal issues. However, he has never been the wisest with words. Last year, a conversation with O'Malley was leaked in which he pleaded that migrant children not be sent to Western Maryland. Many took this as racist. O'Malley later claimed that he said this because the area that these migrant children were going to be sent to was very conservative, and would not be the best environment for them to grow up in. Also, O'Malley had pretty terrible response to the Emanuel AME Church shooting this past week. He said that race played a big role in the shooting, but he didn't know how to address racism in America. He doesn't seem to be a very promising contender for Black voters after that remark. 3. LINCOLN CHAFEE Even though Chafee is running for the democratic presidential nomination, he originally served as a member of the Republican Party during his time as a mayor and senator. In 2007 he left the GOP and became an independent. He later served as the governor of Rhode Island in 2010. The idea of a republican turned democrat might alarm you, but Chafee was always pretty leftist. While serving as a republican senator, Chafee was a very liberal-leaning member, and he routinely voted against what the rest of the party typically supported. For example, Chafee is proud to say that he was the only republican senator to vote against the war with Iraq. He also voted for "same-sex marriage, abortion rights, a higher minimum wage and higher taxes on the wealthy." Chafee's priorities are to strengthen the middle class, avoid war, establish policies that promote environmental responsibility and to protect citizen's amendment rights. So, do you think these candidates have anything on Hillary? Check out their campaigns at the links below and you decide. BernieSanders.com MartinOMalley.com Chafee2016.com   Want more political content like this? Sign up for our weekly newsletter below. [mc4wp_form] site lingerie pas...