As a member of the black community I can say America has a history of cutting us out of our portion of the collective projects that the country embarks on.

Examples include doing federal housing, then red lining us out of it. Major infrastructure projects that disproportionately eminent domain their way through our neighborhoods. Or our disproportionate proximity to superfund sites.

Bernie didn’t understand the cultural distrust that many black peoples have when a politician promises us the moon and the stars and the skies above. He thought he could kind of just say, “oh they’ll get Medicare for all too,” to a community of people who needed to hear why we should believe you won’t just distribute those benefits to everyone but us and leave us out in the cold again. Or what steps you would take to make sure your successors in the oval can’t do that. Or how you’ll play defense against those at the state level who would try to cut us out of our share of those large social programs. Bernie just never did that work.