Every Democratic Candidates’ ‘Black Agenda,’ Ranked – The Root

Image: Michael Harriot (The Root), Photo: Win McNamee (Getty Images), Shutterstock

On Saturday, voters in South Carolina will sound the starting gun for the race to the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. After giving white America a head start on selecting the partys nominee, the Democratic Party now turns to South Carolina.

Black voters cast about 6 percent of the combined votes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. However, South Carolinas Democratic electorate is 55 percent black and the states black turnout is higher than the national and state participation rate for white voters.

Now that the competitors had the chance to warm up their campaigns in the whiter states, we decided to investigate how the contenders plan to address racism, inequality and other issues that affect black people. To do this, we examined each official candidates campaign literature, as well as their past statements, policies and political histories.

We asked policy experts, legal scholars and political pundits, all of whom were black, to help us devised a policy matrix. Then we graded each plan on a scale of 1 to 10 using the following criteria:

If the candidates campaign literature doesnt include a specific black plan, we examined their individual policy proposals to see what effect their plan would have on black America.

Like her polling numbers, Tulsi Gabbards black agenda is nonexistent.

Amy Klobuchar doesnt have a separate plan for black America. However, heres what we found when we examined her campaigns proposals.

The Greenwood Initiative (pdf) is Michael Bloombergs plan for Economic Justice but he also has a number of other ideas.

*Michael Bloomberg will not be on the ballot in the S.C. primaries.

Bernie Sanders plan for racial justice is only a small part of his agenda for black America.

Tom Steyer recently released his all-encompassing African American Policy (pdf).

Pete Buttigiegs Douglass Plan for Black America is long as fuck. However, no points were deducted for length.

Joe Biden doesnt have a separate plan that spells out his vision for black America but heres what we found by examining his platform:

Elizabeth Warrens plan is called A Working Agenda for Black America.

There you have it. Elizabeth Warrens black agenda is the blackest of them all. Unfortunately, she also seems to be invisible to everyone except Mike Bloomberg. But thats only because she keeps punching him in the face during the debates.

Then again, weve only counted the white votes.

Clarification, 2/28/20, 2:25 p.m: While the College & Student Debt section of Elizabeth Warrens Working Agenda for Black America focuses on student debt, it does propose $50 billion in HBCU funding.

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Every Democratic Candidates' 'Black Agenda,' Ranked - The Root