Racism is bad to begin with because it reduces the vast complexity of human experience, character, circumstance and rights to single, largely meaningless in the context, genetic/ethnic characteristic. Now tell me, how Sanders is not doing the same, at least partially, but substantially, saying white people can't really experience poverty?

Imo, racism isn't bad because it oversimplifies the complexity of human experience. It is bad because it degrades in a very direct way the human experience of the group that it is targeting. I don't see how that statement does this. Poor white people have advantages that poor black people don't have because of racism... I don't see why you consider it racist to point that out. Its the opposite because it is highlighting inequality not causing it... or at least that is how it looks to me.

Oversimplifies and degrades are two ways to say the same in this case. If you mean that this statement does not directly harm anyone, many racist statements don't. In fact, there are a lot of racists that never harmed anyone - not because they didn't want to, but because they were inconsequential and never had the opportunity. I think it's pretty strange definition of racism to measure it by whether it causes any immediate direct harm to anybody. Very small number of statements are immediately harmful as such.

> Poor white people have advantages that poor black people don't have because of racism... I don't see why you consider it racist to point that out.

I don't but that's not what Sanders said. If he said that, that indeed would be true, but he didn't.

>Oversimplifies and degrades are two ways to say the same in this case.

I disagree. I don't believe his intent was to degrade. I think he was trying to acknowledge a truth about our culture, ironically an inequality born out of racism. Here is the full quote so anyone reading this doesn't just see the "taken out of context reddit meme" version.

"So to answer your question, I would say, and I think it’s similar to what the secretary said, when you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car.

And I believe that as a nation in the year 2016, we must be firm in making it clear. We will end institutional racism and reform a broken criminal justice system."

...he said, because the claim that it's not possible to be racist against white people had actually won over anybody ever.

So rather than pointing out how Im wrong (as I even requested), you construct a strawman argument? I didn't claim that... its fine if you disagree with me, but be honest in your discussion.

Edit: and since you are not the person that posted the sanders quote.. im not sure how you know what they think their premise is.

Is that not where you're coming from? Because it sure sounds like that's where you're coming from.

The Sanders' quote wasn't oppressively racist, given that his whole platform was centered around equality. Im not claiming that its impossible to say something racist and oppressive about white people. Saying something like "All white people are NASCAR loving, mountain dew sucking, Trump supporting, racist, wal-mart grade white trash" would be considered racist for example.