Joe Biden's Racism is Inexcusable

Note: This was first written in October of 2019, so some tenses/references may be out of date, and I’m too lazy to completely update this article. Originally printed in my school newsletter.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., Uncle Joe, the likeable “I love ice cream” sidekick to the Obama presidency. I remember when the internet was on his side, always making Obama-Biden bromance content, and I, like many others, had a vaguely positive impression of him. He could have stayed that way, but running for the Democratic nomination is the thing to do these days, so here we are--the can of worms that is Biden’s past has resurfaced, he is letting loose political gaffes by the week, and the stark difference between him and the progressive frontrunners, Bernie and Warren, is becoming clearer by the day. I could talk about his flip flopping on abortion rights, and saying things like “I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body” in the context of saying he “disagrees” with Roe v. Wade for going “too far.” I could talk about his inability to locate what state he is in when giving speeches, or what city the El Paso shooting was. The self identified “gaffe machine” even referred to Bernie as “the President” in the third Dem Debate. I could talk about his penchant for fundraising through VIP dinners, with entrance costing several thousand a ticket. “Our campaign aims for a sweet spot of attendees so that the VP can personally connect with every voter in the room,” says Biden’s Iowa communications director. Of course, we wouldn’t want those bothersome crowds of tens of thousands that Bernie is drawing, although I must say if you are paying thousands to see your candidate, you aren’t just a voter, you are a lobbyist. He has even had the puzzling audacity to schedule one such fundraiser, co-hosted by a fossil fuel executive, the same night as the climate crisis debate (and a Wall Street fundraiser the day after, a fundraising style Buttigieg and Harris have taken up as well).

While such topics as campaign finance and mental fitness are all fun and good, one issue with Joe Biden has stuck out to me more than any other: his racism, specifically against black people. He has said “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” He has defended his record on being anti-busing integration by saying “I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.” (Yes, he really did that. He defended state’s rights in the context of racial oppression, reminds me of something else?) He has even advertised his friendship with the “seven or eight old-fashioned Democratic segregationists.” He reminisces, “You’d get up and you’d argue like the devil with them. Then you’d go down and have lunch or dinner together.” Ahh yes, the good old days when I could just have a peaceful lunch with my white supremacist buddies. These are people that called black people an “inferior race” that was “mongrelizing” the nation. These are people that spent their whole political careers trying to oppress black people. It sounds like for Biden, politics is just fun and games, and partisanship is silly. Well, when the color of your skin determines how clean your air and water is, and reduces your life expectancy, and locks you away for decades for a crime you didn’t commit, then it’s not fun and games. It’s deeply personal. Biden continues, “The political system worked. We were divided on issues, but the political system worked.” No Joe, it didn’t, although I understand how it may have felt that way to a white man in a position of power.

The final straw for me, however, the one that got me saying “I need to write about this somewhere, even if it’s just in a school newspaper on a politically apathetic campus of less than 2000 people,” was his performance in the third Dem Debate. When asked about what responsibility needed to be taken to repair the legacy of slavery, Biden starts off ok, talking about institutional racism and spending more money on low income schools. However, his answer takes a racist--not to mention grammatically confusing--turn when he starts talking about making sure “we bring in to help the teachers deal with problems that come from home. The problems that come from home,” he repeats. He continues, “We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone — make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background — will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”

Besides his incoherency, and odd tangent on keeping record players on at night (To undo the effects of hereditary trauma? We’ll never know) we must remember that this question was about reparations towards black America. It was a question asking about how America was built on kidnapping, shipping, and enslaving human beings for centuries. It was asking about how America continues to discriminate and disadvantage black people in courts, in public education, in voting, in environmental pollution, the list goes on. And Biden’s answer--it is truly mind boggling--was to blame black parenting? Black parenting? Is he serious? When asked about inequality, the reason is that black parents “don’t know quite what to do” with their children? That the government must intervene to “help them deal with how to raise their children?” I had to reread the transcript when I first saw this--it would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so deeply infuriating.

Unfortunately, what I can fit into a 1000 word article does not scratch the surface of Biden’s racism. These are just things he has said, and if actions speak louder than words, Biden’s racism still rings loud and clear. Besides leading the charge for anti-busing (in collaboration with aforementioned white supremacist friends), Biden also voted, wrote amendments and sponsored legislation to be “tough on crime” and wage a “war on drugs,” which locked away more black and brown people for longer times. He was so tough on crime he made a TV appearance about being more conservative than Bush Sr. on crime, saying “quite frankly, the President’s plan is not tough enough, bold enough.” And by tough, Biden seems to have meant things like--judging from the Anti-Drug Abuse Act he sponsored and helped write--making crack cocaine (commonly used by blacks), 100 times more penalizing than powder cocaine (commonly used by whites).

Despite all of this, it is probable that Biden genuinely does not think he is a racist, nor is he consciously plotting legislation to hurt black America as president. You may be asking, his actions and words are unequivocally racist, but is he a racist? Or you may think, Biden is just another guy, everyone messes up here and there, that doesn’t make him a horrible person. But that’s not what I’m arguing. He is a presidential candidate. His racism is absolutely inexcusable as a person who is trying to serve the 37 million black people in this country, especially considering how many of these statements were made on the presidential campaign road. We must be more than the not-Trump party. We cannot just be not racist, we must be anti-racist. We, the people--and especially black America, and especially black American women, who overwhelmingly and consistently turn out to vote for Democrats, despite the general Democratic lack of attention, and sometimes contribution to racial injustice--deserve better.