Reclaiming MLK

 Matthew Yglesias looks at how Martin Luther King's economic radicalism is largely ignored by both the Left and Right today. The Right, naturally, lifts a single line from the "I Have A Dream" speech - the "content of their character" bit - in order to argue that we don't need to address racism anymore. As others have done, Yglesias brushes these bullshit arguments out of the way pretty comprehensively. Jim Crow was often not crafted in explicitly racial terms, especially voting restrictions. In fact, not much has changed there, as Conservatives continue their project to make it harder for People of Color to vote without writing "Don't let Black people vote" into the actual laws.

The case against the "Left" is little trickier. It's the case, oddly enough, that Bernie Sanders was trying to make, but he made poorly: the best way to help Black and Brown Americans is to help ALL poorer Americans, since poverty disproportionately effects those communities. Not just "jobs" and "education" but just actual money can help those communities immensely. Ending childhood poverty should be a universal goal of American politics, whether you believe in racial justice or equality over equity. If you want improved outcomes for Black Americans, improve the inputs. If you want to stop "talking about race all the time" then make a society where poverty is not concentrated in certain racial groups.

As I've noted repeatedly, the main problem with Left of Center politics is the Judean People's Front problem: endless factionalism. The bridge from King's racial justice focus to King's economic justice focus is the bridge to a potentially enduring political coalition. 

It will take, however, an unusual political figure to walk it. I don't think White America would trust a Black politician to navigate it, because we saw what happened when Obama created a race-neutral redistribution of wealth. They derided Obamacare (and also Obamaphones given to the homeless so they could get callbacks for job interviews) by placing his name - Black and foreign sounding - in the title. Perhaps Biden - Scranton Joe - a political relic from the last century, among the whitest of White men could be the avatar of a class-based coalition that marries cross-racial efforts to alleviate poverty with an implicit (rather than explicit) liberalism on diversity. If you can marry enough working class whites to racial minorities to suburban college educated whites...that leaves the Republican Party screaming at the 27%.