Democrats must not fall for the ruse. Joe Biden ‘s manner of speech while not immediately offensive and insensitive to older Baby Boomers, to younger boomers and GenXers and below, they show a person of another time.
So what happened at a recent fundraiser? The Atlantic staff writer Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted the following.
Tonight at a fundraiser in NYC, Biden recalled serving with a major segregationist Mississippi senator: “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland … he never called me boy, he always called me son.” He imitated the drawl. “At least there was some civility. We got things done”
Those who are defending Joe Biden understand the main point he was trying to make. I understand the main point he was trying to make. In effect, to move forward, a good politician, a good legislature must find a way to work with anybody, even a racist.
So who was the racist politician he was talking about working in the Senate? Martin Vinaes Larse, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University & a political scientist, quoted the part of the following phrase from the book “Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986.” It defines the racist Senator that Biden was referencing perfectly.
Unapologetic in his opposition to the black freedom struggle, Eastland delighted in his obduracy. Thumping his chest, the senator often boasted how as chairman of the Civil Rights Subcommittee (a position gained through senate rules of seniority), he had refused to hold any meetings for three years despite laws that required weekly conferences. “I didn’t permit them to meet. I had to protect the interest of the people of Mississippi.”[4] Back home, in Sunflower County, African Americans comprised almost seventy percent of “the people.” Handbills that usually accompanied his appearances before segregationist audiences, however, reflected Eastland’s thoughts on those constituents who counted and those who did not: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bow and arrows, sling shots and knives. We hold these truths to be self evident that all whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers.”[5]
Remember when Joe Biden referred to Obama as articulate as if it was surprising to see a black person who could generate coherent English sentences? Do I think Joe Biden is racist? Absolutely not in the common notion. But there is an air of him looking at things through a pecking order.
Why did he need to decorate his statement anywhere with “he never called me boy, he always called me, son.” — “At least there was some civility. We got things done.” Two things were wrong with the statement that had he been empathetic he would realize. First, he was not called “boy” because the racist considered him OK for being white. In other words, he will work with Joe because of that. But to equate the times as civil because of civil discourse between a racist and a purported non-racist tells those who did not know civility in those times when their bodies were always at physical risk and their state of mind under permanent stress, show a lack of sensitivity and empathy beyond reason.
And that is who Biden is. And while he could be President without any modicum of empathy in the Republican Party, that just won’t do for Democrats. One hopes the Establishment realizes this early enough before they vest their faith in a several time loser of the Democratic Presidential nomination. It seems some have earned the right to get any number of chances irrespective of their failure rate.