At a recent Netroots Nation conference, Democratic candidate for President Bernie Sanders was criticized for suggesting combating economic inequality as an answer to institutional racism in America. “Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50 percent of young African-American kids are unemployed,” Sanders said at the conference. “It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.”
He was booed by some in attendance for not directly addressing the question of racism.
On Sunday, Sanders doubled down, stating that economic inequality must be dealt with in addition to institutional racism.
“We have to end institutional racism, but we have to deal with the reality that 50% of young black kids are unemployed, that we have massive poverty in America, that we have an unsustainable level of income and wealth inequality,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“We have to address both,” he added, referencing the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. to combat poverty in America.
Sanders was lambasted by some black activists last weekend at progressive conference Netroots Nation, where critics accused him of focusing on economic issues over racial inequality.
“My view is that we have got to deal with the fact that the middle class in this country is disappearing, that we have millions of people working for wages that are much too low impacts everybody, impacts the African American community even more,” he said on Sunday. “Those are issues that do have to be dealt with, and just at the same time as we deal with institutional racism.”
