Civil Rights, The Left, Liberalism and the Beloved Community

I think the major obstacle for the left right now is not the ancient mistrust between liberalism and socialism, but that the left hasn't fully reckoned with the legacy of racism and what that means for the possibility of social change. Have you ever wondered why Vermont and Oregon, two of the states that are most progressive in terms of social care of its citizens, also happen to be states whose percentage of white citizens are in the mid to high 90s? Or why states with a legacy of Jim Crow laws are least likely to provide social benefits to their citizens? Racial resentment makes it nearly impossible for America to rally around shared social benefits. Currently, for all its flaws, the liberal wing of the Democratic party has found the most in common with the Civil Rights movement. To a large degree this has to do with the historical experience of social improvements almost never trickling down to people of color, or in many cases, socialist movements in the US making sure to cut out people of color in order to get a broad enough coalition to get movement (see the history of social security passage, or low income housing and redlining, or public education, or health care, etc.) Meanwhile, liberals have found common cause with the civil rights movement in the building of Martin Luther King's Beloved Community.