Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a writer, public speaker and activist living in Philadelphia. She writes on Black politics, housing inequality and issues of race and class in the United States. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her book From #BLACKLIVESMATTER to BLACK LIBERATION, published in February by Haymarket Books, has received rave reviews from Michelle Alexander, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Cornel West who says “Keeanga-Yamahtta Tahlor has emerged as the most sophisticated and courageous radical intellectual of her generation.”
Here is an excerpt from her recent writings:
Sanders has a campaign platform that should appeal widely to Black voters, including his opposition to the death penalty, his support for a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare and free public college tuition. Sanders, who hails from the lily white state of Vermont and whose tenure in the Senate has been as an Independent, has not had to build political relationships with the CBC or other Black political operatives. Thus, he is not very well known among Black voters. In South Carolina exit polls, familiarity with the candidate and experience was rated significantly higher than “electability” in the November election. Even still, Sanders did well among Black voters under thirty which indicates that if Sanders had more time, and had not endured a virtual media blackout until the Iowa caucuses he may have made won even more Black voters to his campaign.
Despite Sanders growing appeal among some Black voters, it is difficult to build the reputation and connections to Black political and civic organizations that are key to turning voters out in a matter of weeks and months compared to the twenty-five year history of the Clinton political machine.
