How a 'Race-Class Narrative' Can Work for Democrats
Updated at 11:26 a.m. ET on August 10
Talking about race is bad, and campaigning on it makes voters feel bad. Or so the conventional wisdom has been in past election years.
One progressive organization, though, says specifically invoking racial identity actually increases the efficacy of the Democrats’ message—if it’s done the right way. Demos, a liberal think tank that focuses on voting rights and civic engagement, presented new research on how to effectively use a “race-class narrative” last weekend at the annual Netroots Nation gathering of progressive activists in New Orleans. “A significant number of people in the Democratic establishment … think we should talk about economic populism only,” said Ian Haney López, a law professor at UC Berkeley and a senior fellow at Demos, at the packed panel on August 3. They’re wrong, he says. “Naming race works.”
The research, part of the Race-Class Narrative Project and managed, in part, by Demos, offers a potential answer to the questions swirling within the Democratic Party about the role race should play in their messaging: How can they , who make up nearly 40 percent of their base, without alienating white
