Unlike Single Payer, Obamacare’s Design Neglects Black People
By Eli Day for Peoples Policy Report - Mainstream liberals, and in particular Democrats, have been known to cozy up to radical language and symbols just as their value, and with it the political fortunes of those who parrot and exploit them, begins to rise. The last few years are crowded with examples. I’m thinking here of liberals’ oafish performance as champions of social justice. You see it most strikingly in the warm embrace of intersectionality and Black Lives Matter (both of which emerged from the black feminist tradition). That each has exploded in popularity in recent years isn’t itself the problem. The problem is that in the hands of many a liberal politician and pundit, they’ve been rapidly evacuated of substance. Substance that otherwise includes a set of short and long-term political commitments aimed at improving black life. Anyone who claims to value those lives should feel an awful rage at the outcome. After all, rhetorical admiration for black people without a full-throated embrace of policies that stand to improve the actual lives of black people may buoy the fortunes of the speaker, but it’s a pretty shitty deal for…black people. What’s cool is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Take healthcare. Judged by the misery it inflicts on black people, few systems should be as easily slated for decimation as America’s employer-provided system. In its place, the admirers of black life should get behind Medicare-for-All pronto.
