Is Joe Biden racist?
No one knows what's truly in another man's heart.
All we can do is listen to what they say, look at what they do and then make an informed decision.
But I do know this….the calls of racism are increasing and greatly increased this week after his now infamous "you ain't black" comment.
But that was far from the first incident he's faced.
Let's start with the most recent "gaffe".
I think "gaffe" is such a nice, soft and gentle word for it, don't you think?
He just committed a little "gaffe"…..isn't he adorable?
Like your Grandpa, just saying whatever he wants and sometimes really stepping in it.
So cute.
Right?
Hmmmm.
Here he was this week telling an interviewer that if he's not going to vote for Biden 100%, then "you ain't black"!
Watch:
I happen to think every voter should be able to think for themselves and vote for whichever party and candidate they think has the best ideas.
But that's just me.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned.
Then there is this old clip which is making waves online:
That's the funny thing about the internet....it's written in ink.
And videos don't disappear.
Sorry Joe, we didn't forget about this little rant you had.
Doesn't it just make your skin crawl listening to this?
UGH! I need to go take a shower.
Here's a backup if that gets taken down:
President Trump has seized on the comments.
From The Hill:
President Trump’s reelection campaign blasted former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday for saying that if you support Trump “then you ain’t black,” calling the remarks “racist and dehumanizing.”
“White liberal elitists have continuously dictated which black Americans are allowed to come to the table and have a voice,” said Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and leader of its Black Voices for Trump group.
“It is clear now more than ever, following these racist and dehumanizing remarks, that Joe Biden believes black men and women are incapable of being independent or free thinking. He truly believes that he, a 77-year-old white man, should dictate how black people should behave. Biden has a history of racial condescension and today he once again proved what a growing number of black Americans and I have always known — Joe Biden does not deserve our votes.”
During a sometimes-contentious interview with popular radio show "The Breakfast Club" on Friday, host Charlamagne Tha God told Biden he should come back on the show at some point because “we’ve got more questions.”
“You’ve got more questions?” Biden replied. “Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black."
Over the course of the interview, Charlamagne repeatedly pressed Biden on his past support for crime bills in the 1980s and 1990s that have led to the mass incarceration of black people.
Biden defended his record and noted that he’s vetting “multiple” black women to be his running mate. Biden also pointed to his broad support among African Americans in the polls and said that black voters delivered him sweeping victories across the country during the Democratic primaries.
Trump’s campaign has sought to make inroads with black voters, opening community centers in key battleground states and running a weekly livestream featuring black surrogates talking about how the president’s policies have been beneficial for the black community.
But polls show Biden with a lead of 30 to 40 points among black voters, who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.
But it's not just the comments from this month.
Here he is back in April facing heavy criticism from the Business Insider over different comments that were alleged to be racist:
One of presidential candidate Joe Biden's latest advertisements came under fire on Twitter this weekend, with many calling it racist and xenophobic for its rhetoric surrounding China and the novel coronavirus. The ad explicitly targets President Trump's response to the coronavirus, criticizing President Trump for being too soft and trusting of the Chinese government during the early stages of the pandemic.
It positions Biden as his hypothetical foreign policy foil, showing a clip of Biden saying, "I would be on the phone with China making it clear: We are going to need to be in your country. You have to be open. You have to be clear. We have to know what's going on."
The Atlantic's Peter Beinart called those comments a "jingoistic fantasy," writing that "in suggesting that Biden could bludgeon China into submission — in a phone call, no less — the Biden campaign is peddling a lie about how public-health cooperation with China actually works." The advertisement itself appears to be a response to Trump's recent anti-Biden ads, which accuse the Vice President of being soft on China.
At the same time, the ad's rhetoric casts China's government — and its people — as untrustworthy, linking the American crisis to Trump putting trust in Chinese government officials. The advertisement states that the President "rolled over for the Chinese" — as opposed to "Chinese President Xi Jinping" or "the Chinese government" — failing to differentiate between the government and its people in what some are calling an unfair generalization.The advertisement has garnered praise from some for being hard on Trump: Jon Cooper, former chair of The Democratic Coalition (an anti-Trump super-PAC), wrote on Twitter, "Damn, this ad by Joe Biden is brutally effective. Trump can run, but he can't hide." Political commentator Edward Hardy tweeted, "Joe Biden has unveiled another devastating attack ad." Singer Ricky Davila said on Twitter, "Holy sh-t, Joe Biden's newest ad slaps an orange criminal's weak pathetic ego in the face."
However, just as pervasive (if not more so) than the praise were criticisms of the ad's rhetoric, with many criticizing the way in which it portrays China, its people, and its government.
Others expressed frustration at the Biden campaign's apparent lack of willingness to reach out to progressive voters, particularly given the messaging of the ad.
Joe Biden is now running an ad saying Trump likes and trusts China too much. That ad would never exist if the outbreak started in England. In other words, he is now attacking Trump from the right on racism, xenophobia, and nationalism.
Remind me again why we should vote for him?
Biden has condemned some of the anti-Chinese rhetoric that President Trump has espoused in the past, tweeting on Feb. 1 that, "we need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering."
That being said, many found the new advertisement merely parroting the anti-China rhetoric that Republicans have peddled in an effort to distract from Trump's disastrous coronavirus response. While Biden has spoken out against Trump's xenophobia, for many, the advertisement supersedes any previous comments: Asian Americans have faced racist attacks and sentiment as a result of the pandemic, and an ad that espouses rhetoric tying "the Chinese" to it could stand to exacerbate harassment.
But it doesn't end there.
Here's an extremely well-written OpEd in the USA Today calling Biden "bigoted" and "racist":
Much attention has been rightfully devoted to bigoted comments former Vice President Joe Biden made during his Friday interview with “The Breakfast Club” when he had the audacity to say "Well I tell you what, If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."
As a black man who voted for Donald J. Trump for president in 2016, and plans to do so in 2020, no 77-year-old white man from Delaware has the right, authority or rationale to question my blackness or the blackness of millions of Americans exercising our God-given right to be free and exercise our constitutionally granted power to vote for whomever we want, even if they are Republican.
If you only watch the sound bites of the interview, you miss his full-throated support and defense of the 1994 crime bill. Biden literally tried to convince black America that our communities weren't destroyed, black families weren't ripped apart, and black wealth was not stifled for generations because of a bill he designed.
Even the host from “The Breakfast Club” agrees. After the interview, host Charlamagne tha God said, “He really was one of the people on the front lines when it came to the war on drugs, and mass incarceration. If he wants to be president, he needs to fix that."
Joe Biden's record is a shame
The black community is well aware of the real impact of his signature legislation. The Center for American Progress sums it up: “The crime bill also expanded the school-to-prison pipeline and increased racial disparities in juvenile justice involvement by creating draconian penalties for so-called super predators — low-income children of color, especially black children, who are convicted of multiple crimes.”
Thanks to President Trump’s courageous leadership pushing for historic criminal justice reform and signing the First Step Act into law, he helped reverse the pain and suffering many black men and women experienced because of Biden’s bill.
He put the vulnerable at risk:Why oh why is NY Governor Andrew Cuomo being praised for his coronavirus response?
If Biden felt any remorse over what he helped do to the black community, he could have spent his next decades of service to Delaware to undo the damage, but he didn’t. If Biden was so connected, concerned, and passionate about helping and uplifting the black community he would have publicly pushed President Barack Obama to get criminal justice reform over the finish line, but he was silent.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee seem to look at black Americans just as votes and not as actual people, with brains, feelings and families. Liberal policies have not made it easier for black business owners to navigate fewer regulations, pay less in taxes, and be lifted out of poverty. Liberal policies were not responsible for historic low black unemployment, and the creation of opportunity zones. But the Trump administration did. So, Biden should not be asking black America to compare his record to that of Trump's.
What this entire episode shows us is Biden and his team are running scared of the continued black engagement efforts of the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign’s Black Voices for Trump Coalition, which are doing the work to build the relationships and amplify the record of achievement of this current administration. Biden is threatened. So, his latest voter intimidation tactic is to scare black voters into submission by attempting to take away our cultural identity if we do not vote for him.
Curiously, we have not heard from former President Obama, or from several of the black women who are rumored to be on Biden’s shortlist for vice president. So far, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, Florida Rep. Val Demings, and former Ambassador Susan Rice are keeping mum or giving him a pass. Why let bigoted comments get in the way of their own political interests?
Former Vice President Joe Biden interviewed by radio host Charlamagne tha God in May 2020.
Thankfully, Black Entertainment Television (BET) co-founder Bob Johnson called him out saying in part “This proves unequivocally that the Democratic nominee believes that black people owe him their vote without question; even though we as black people know it is exactly the opposite. He should spend the rest of his campaign apologizing to every black person he meets.”
Yes, Biden issued an apology, not for being a bigot, or offensive, rude or arrogant, but he only said, “I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.” A lackluster response to match his lackluster record of fighting for the black community.
Want to go back a little further?
Here's NBC News in February calling a Biden staffer racist:
Black lawmakers in South Carolina are calling on former Vice President Joe Biden to disavow statements from a longtime friend and campaign surrogate that they say are racist.
About half of the 45-member Legislative Black Caucus held a news conference on Wednesday blasting Democratic state Sen. Dick Harpootlian for remarks they contend insinuated that their group’s chairman had been bought by Biden rival Tom Steyer because he was paid for his work for Steyer’s campaign. They said Biden, who is running for president and is a top contender in the upcoming South Carolina primary, should distance himself from Harpootlian following the comments.
“We ask that he do it publicly, and that he do it now,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said. “His refusal to do so will not go over well in the black community, and it certainly will not go over well with members of the Black Caucus that are standing behind me.”
Harpootlian denies that his comments were racially motivated. Biden spokeswoman Paige Hill said Wednesday that Harpootlian “does not speak for the Biden campaign.”
The fight broke out just over three weeks before South Carolina’s presidential primary, the first voting contest in the South. The majority of South Carolina’s Democratic voting electorate is black, a demographic that overwhelmingly supports Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential race. Biden is working to find his footing after a struggling showing in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on Monday.
Harpootlian tweeted earlier Wednesday about Federal Election Commission filings showing Black Caucus Chairman Jerry Govan receiving “almost $50,000” from Steyer’s campaign in just more than a month’s time and called the billionaire Steyer “Mr. Money Bags.”
“Is he pocketing the dough or redistributing the wealth?” Harpootlian asked, referring to Govan.
Harpootlian also told the Post and Courier newspaper of South Carolina: “He told me he was with Joe Biden until Mr. Moneybags showed up.” He continued: “This is what happens when billionaires get involved, whether it’s Donald Trump or Tom Steyer. They just buy things. They don’t have to persuade anybody, they just buy them.”
After the news conference, Harpootlian told reporters that he was not a Biden campaign spokesman and hadn’t consulted the campaign before making any comments.
And here's even more!
Check out this Fox News article about a Biden ad being called "devistatingly racist" and "xenophobic":
The Biden campaign is facing backlash over an attack ad against President Trump and his apparently weak treatment of China during the coronavirus outbreak. Critics are saying it is "racist" and "xenophobic."
The Biden campaign is facing backlash over an attack ad against President Trump and his apparently weak treatment of China during the coronavirus outbreak. Critics are saying it is "racist" and "xenophobic."
President Trump and his reelection campaign have been slamming former Vice President Joe Biden in recent days, attempting to tie the presumptive Democratic nominee to the communist regime as suspicion continues to grow that China had been dishonest about the origins of the pandemic as well as the data it has shared with the rest of the world regarding known cases and deaths within the country.
On Saturday, the Biden campaign fired back, accusing Trump of "rolling over for the Chinese" and letting 40,000 travelers arrive in the U.S. from China after signing the travel ban.
The ad, while praised among Biden supporters, was widely-criticized among left-leaning journalists and Twitter users.
The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald suggested that the Democrats who previously denounced Trump's rhetoric towards China as "racist" are now cheering on the same sentiment.
"Trump's response to COVID-19 has been inept and self-serving, but wow this is some xenophobic messaging..." progressive journalist Walker Bragman reacted.
"It’s exhausting how people are praising a dog-whistling ad that leans on yellow peril narratives but I guess that’s what you have to do when your candidate has no intention of fixing the structural problems that got us into this mess to begin with," Vulture senior writer E. Alex Jung wrote.
"Wow @JoeBiden. Already trying to out-Trump Trump. This kind of fearmongering is causing violent attacks on Asian Americans. If you are trying to reform your past history of racist policymaking, like your 1994 crime bill, you had better do some homework. This ain’t it," civil rights lawyer Cecelia Wang tweeted.
"This is a devastatingly racist Biden ad," The Nation senior editor Christopher Shay declared.
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