By Dr. Harold A. Black
Back in 2012 in my now inactive blog (haroldblack.blogspot.com) I asked “Is Joe Biden a racist?” I noted his long history of making racist remarks. Those remarks along with a record in the Senate of opposing busing, opposing school integration and strong friendships with racist southern senators reinforced the notion that Biden was indeed a racist. I could never understand how the media and prominent blacks gave him a pass. Republicans were not given the same treatment. For example, Trent Lott, the senator from Mississippi was literally forced to resign from his leadership position for his praise of Strom Thurman, the segregationist senator from South Carolina. Biden, on the other hand, had similar praise for Robert Byrd, the Democrat senator from West Virginia, who had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. But there was little criticism of Biden. Biden owes his nomination to Jim Clyburn, the black Democrat from South Carolina and the overwhelming support of black South Carolina voters in that state’s primary. This is the same Biden who as president called his senior advisor, Cedric Richmond “boy”. Not a peep of criticism from Clyburn.
It is almost incomprehensible that a politician could survive even a few of these “gaffes” let alone one who is now president of the United States. Here are some of his comments listed in no chronological order.
Regarding the reluctance of some minorities to the vaccination Biden said “Latinx” people don’t want to get vaccinated because they’re worried they’ll be deported. And for blacks, “They are used to being experimented on—the Tuskegee Airmen and others,”
He apparently confused the World War II fighter pilots with the notorious governmental study of syphilis among black men—the Tuskegee Experiment.
During the campaign he said to a largely black radio audience that if they were unsure of whether to vote for him or Trump, then “you ain’t black!”
Biden said unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things.
Asked by a black reporter on whether he had taken a cognitive test, Biden said “That’s like saying you . . . before you got in this program, you’re take [sic] a test whether you’re taking cocaine or not,” Biden said. “What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”
As a senator, Biden sponsored legislation to restrict busing and said that forced busing to desegregate schools would cause his children to “grow up in a racial jungle.”
As for reparations, Biden said “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather,” he said in 1975. “I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”
“We’ve got to recognize that the kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger,”
“The data shows young black entrepreneurs are just as capable of succeeding given the chance as white entrepreneurs are,” Biden said. “But they don’t have lawyers. They don’t have, they don’t have accountants, but they have great ideas.”
When addressing a black group he said that the only time that many blacks would be together at a Republican gathering, they would be wearing white coats.
He referred to President Obama as “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
He said “you cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.
Biden opined why the schools in Iowa perform better than those in Washington D.C. saying “There’s less than 1% of the population in Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5% that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”
Then-Vice President Biden told a predominately black audience that then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s proposed financial regulation would “put y’all back in chains.”
He also said, “We bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not want they don’t want to help. They don’t know quite what to do.”
So Biden is truly the Teflon politician when it comes to racism. His comments are shrugged off as mere “gaffes.” I know of no other politician who commits so many “gaffes” and is ignored. Again, I ask “Is Joe Biden a racist?”
