Joe Biden To Black Voters: If You’re Trying To Decide Between Trump Or Me, ‘You Ain’t Black’
[guest post by Dana]
So, this happened:
Joe Biden defended his legislative record in an often contentious Friday morning interview with Charlamagne Tha God, the host of the popular radio show “The Breakfast Club,” and argued that his presidential campaign was doing enough to reach out to black voters. At one point, Biden argued that black voters undecided on whether to vote for him or for President Trump “ain’t black.”
.@JoeBiden: "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black." @cthagod: "It don't have nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with the fact — I want something for my community." @breakfastclubam pic.twitter.com/endvWnOIV2
— America Rising (@AmericaRising) May 22, 2020
Charlamagne tha God: (17:15)
Listen, you got to come see us when you come to New York VP Biden.Joe Biden: (17:18)
I will.Charlamagne tha God: (17:19)
Because it’s a long way until November. We got more questions.Joe Biden: (17:22)
You got more questions but I tell ya, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.Charlamagne tha God: (17:28)
It don’t have nothing to do with Trump. It has to do with the fact I want something for my community. I would love to see-
After criticism came from both sides of the aisle because WHO SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT, Biden was compelled to apologize for his gaffe explain himself in a phone call with members of the U.S. Black Chambers:
“I should not have been so cavalier. I’ve never, never, ever taken the African American community for granted.”
“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier. … No one should have to vote for any party based on their race, their religion, their background,” Biden said. “There are African Americans who think that Trump was worth voting for, I don’t think so. I’m prepared to put my record against his. That was the bottom line and it was ah — it was really unfortunate I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.”
Hm, was that being “cavalier,” or was that just being flippant, disrespectful, and arrogant? I’m going with the latter three…
Black Republicans were vocal in their criticism of Biden:
…Michigan Senate candidate John James, who addressed Biden in a tweeted video: “You challenging me and millions of other people out there on their blackness, descendants of slaves, from you is some seriously condescending, out of touch bullcrap,” and he questioned whether Biden should “even be running for president in the Democratic Party who says they’re for black people.”
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott told reporters on a Trump campaign call, “I thought to myself, I’ve been black for 54 years. I was struck by the condescension and the arrogance.” Scott urged his Senate colleagues to disavow Biden’s remarks and added, “Race baiting in the 21st century is an ineffective tool to attract one of the most intelligent voting blocs in the nation. He should respect African-American voters as individuals, not as a part of a group or a monolithic group of people.”
Biden’s senior advisor, Symone D. Sanders defended Biden, saying the comments were made in jest:
“The comments made at the end of the Breakfast Club interview were in jest, but let’s be clear about what the VP was saying: he was making the distinction that he would put his record with the African American community up against Trump’s any day. Period,”
Here are a few varied responses to Biden’s comments from the black community:
Oh my god.This is mortifying (on Biden’s behalf for that gratuitous use of “ain’t”) and revolting (on my own behalf) for that condescending racial essentialism. I say this as someone who would vote for my son’s diaper over Trump. https://t.co/nlfDjbgOGx
— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) May 22, 2020
The problem was, in fact, what he said. He's gaffe prone and Trump said something worse, fine––that's to be expected. What's more disturbing is this acceptance of the idea that an ethnic identity *must be wed* to a specific politics. What other ethnic group is policed like this? https://t.co/EcoqZE3BUm
— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) May 22, 2020
The issue is who said it, not what was said. White folks should never define what’s black.
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) May 22, 2020
I’m also amazed that commentators like Jemele Hill don’t see how this is the exact same logic many Trump-voting whites employ, wedding their politics to an ethnic identity at any cost.
You can’t hold on to political “blackness” and advocate an end to political “whiteness”
— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) May 22, 2020
My comment: Being ‘Not Trump’ is not good enough to inspire voter turnout. If he wants any chance of winning he needs to stop threatening us with Trump and start giving us real power. https://t.co/yfNsDC948Phttps://t.co/yfNsDC948P
— Aimee Allison (@aimeeallison) May 22, 2020
And then there was bit of insight from The Root:
First, he keeps calling Charlamagne, “man.”
“I’m following the rules, man.”
“Totally different, man.”
This is Biden’s version of a blaccent. This is the thing he’s doing to make himself cool and hip to the young black community. Imagine a white guy calling you his main man; that’s the way Biden says it. Except, he doesn’t realize he’s playing himself and the community he’s supposed to be reaching out to. Biden isn’t alone in this.
This is a thing that out-of-touch white politicians do all the time. I call it the Love Don’t Co$t a Thing move. It goes like this: Can’t Buy Me Love is a teen romantic comedy that premiered in 1987. It’s an underrated classic that centers around a geeky kid using his savings to pay a cheerleader to help him be cool. When Hollywood wanted to re-create the success of Can’t Buy Me Love, they went and grabbed a young Nick Cannon to star in a remake called Love Don’t Co$t a Thing. Two things are wrong with this idea: The first is that black audiences didn’t like the original movie. The second is that in order to get black audiences to come out, the studio had to hip-hop the title up a bit with that dollar sign for an “s.” What the studio didn’t realize and what Biden doesn’t realize is doing that is degrading and shows just how out of touch they are with the community they’re trying to reach.
You don’t endear yourself to black people by trying to talk the way you believe they do. You endear yourself to black people—hell, all people—by being genuine…
During the interview, Biden also confirmed that he was considering a black woman as a running mate:
Biden also “guaranteed” that he was considering a black woman to serve as his vice president. CBS News reported that Biden is vetting Amy Klobuchar, who is white, as a potential vice presidential pick. She is one of several contenders being scrutinized for the job by Biden aides.
“I guarantee you, there are multiple black women being considered. Multiple,” Biden said.
Biden may feel compelled to choose a black woman for the vice president slot because of his gaffe. But if it blows over and is dismissed with an exasperated “Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe” eyeroll, then his options for a vice president remain open.
So why did Biden act as if he was entitled to the black vote? Because he really believes he is, of course:
He said it because he meant it. It’s not just that he believes his record on racial issues is better than Trump’s, it’s that he’s willing to demagogue racial identity to help his party. He did it eight years ago, infamously, when he told a black audience that Republicans want to “put y’all back in chains.” Whatever the particulars of his record and Trump’s, he uttered a party orthodoxy this morning so commonplace that I think you could take literally any Democratic politician in the country with literally any Republican opponent and they’d offer the same view (privately) of whether they’re entitled to black votes or not.
Bearing in mind that Biden is a long-practiced politician and a spectacular schmoozer with all the accompanying ambition (obviously), I think he jumped at the opportunity to remind black voters that, because he is in their corner, they should be in his corner. In other words, it was just politics as usual for the Democrat. Not a flattering picture of Biden, and certainly not a flattering picture of how Biden views black voters. But there were also practical political reasons that prompted Biden’s (risky) cringe-inducing-foot-in-mouth-over-familiarity:
First, after becoming VP to the first black president and then turning the tide of this year’s primaries via black voters in South Carolina, he may believe he’s got enough cred banked with black Americans that he’s entitled to be racially presumptuous in a way most whites aren’t. He has special privileges. Not so special that he can get away with anything — he’s not going to call anyone “my nigga,” I hope — but special enough that, sure, he’ll amiably question your blackness if you support Trump. His problem is that his self-perceived privileges aren’t clearly defined even to him, which led to him crossing the line this morning.
Second, he may be panicked that he’s underperforming with black voters. Sure, he still leads Trump head to head in every national poll, but the battleground polls haven’t been quite as solid for him and some of the data even in national polling has looked worrisome for his campaign among nonwhites…
Put it all together and Biden may be feeling anxious about his hold on the black vote. He’ll win it by a landslide, needless to say, but the exact margin of that landslide will matter to the final outcome of the election. He wants to duplicate Obama’s gigantic edge among African-Americans in 2008 and 2012 and maybe feels like he *should* be duplicating it because of his bio — but he isn’t, at least not yet. So maybe that anxiety led him into an unusually crass and desperate formulation of what black voters supposedly owe him this fall.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategists and party officials are hoping to convince former President Obama to use his immense popularity to draw in more voters and critical Democrat constituencies that are crucial for a Biden victory. Biden’s attempt to define what makes someone black certainly certainly wasn’t helpful to the cause.
–Dana