Bernie Sanders was asked one question in a presidential debate: Do you believe in reparations?
His answer was one word: No.
The man talking about Medicare for All, student debt, and breaking up the billionaire class could not find a way to say yes to direct compensation for Black Americans whose enslaved labor built the wealth he was campaigning against.
On the Bad Faith Podcast, Briahna Joy Gray, Bernie’s former press secretary, and poet Saul Williams break down what that moment revealed about the left, the Democratic Party, and why the pro-reparations movement had a word for every workaround politicians tried: the Tangibles test.
The key exchange happens when Saul Williams brings up Bernie directly:
“I as a black person, I’ll never forget this with Bernie. And I’ll never forget or forgive this moment. It was during his debate where someone asked him, ‘Do you believe in reparations?’ And Bernie had a quick answer: No.
And I remember thinking, even from a candidate perspective, you’re talking about free health care and free education. You could just as easily say yes, I want to provide free health care and free education as reparations, and also I want to see to it that everybody receives this. There had to be some dance.”
Briahna’s response is equally sharp. She pushes back, noting that candidates who tried to reframe universal programs as reparations were called out immediately by pro-reparations groups:
“That got called out real quick by the actual reparations people… A lot of the pro-Black groups and the pro-reparations groups were calling for, they had a word for it, Tangibles. They wanted Tangibles for Black people.”
Saul’s response: “Justifiably so.”