During a speech on Tuesday at a campaign stop in Danville, Virginia, Joe Biden warned his crowd of attentive listeners about Mitt Romney’s intentions to undo Wall Street reforms. He spoke boldly, confidently, and authoritatively, then capped the accusation off with, “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains.”
Now there are only a handful of people who might be angered by that comment: recovering masochists, inmates, POWs ... and African-Americans. Forty-eight percent of Danville’s population is black, and the audience that day reflected that demographic. You know darn good and well you can’t reference chains in a room full of black folks. Come on now, Joe. Talk about open mouth, insert foot. (And incidentally, they’re called “coffles.”)
A little research beforehand would've told him that the city of Danville was a high stakes player in the slavery melodrama, just like almost every other Southern city, town, and village. There was even a race riot in 1883. But it doesn't take a stab at being a historian to tip off a person in a position of power that it’s probably not wise to even hint at the enslavement period unless you’re prepared to say something constructive. And that, my friends, wasn’t it.
I like Joe Biden. I do. But I’m just not quite sure how to make this train wreck of a metaphor be OK. Honestly, if I was there, I would've been offended. I’m the person in the room who catches stuff like that and balls my face up in very obvious disgust. (Though, I must admit, I would've been more taken aback by how much that man has aged since the last time I saw him. I’m not a J.B. groupie so I don’t keep track of his media stops and campaign events, but I was like good Lord! Prez and his VP can keep that White House gig. It apparently zaps everyone who takes it of any drop of youthfulness. Yikes. But I digress.)
The Romney campaign hopped on this chains-in-Danville faux pas like a pimple on a prom queen and has wrangled it into representing Biden’s plot for racial divisiveness. Deep sigh and eye roll. I don’t think it boils down to all of that. I think it’s just one of those insensitive remarks someone who is part of the majority makes because they don’t have any cultural wounds to watch out for themselves. Hear tell some folks, we should be “over it” anyway, so any residuals of slavery should be fair game to be joked about, openly referenced, and used in illustrative quips during campaign speeches.
It’s not enough to make me dislike Joe, though. I mean, honestly, if that was the case, I’d be scratching folks off my list one by one, and not all of them white, either, including an old boss who told me I was surprisingly articulate for someone who graduated from Lincoln (which is a black college in Pennsylvania), for example, or the man from Capitol Hill who referred to my neighborhood as “the jungle” when I told him what part of D.C. I live in.
Being black is certainly not tragic but you do have to learn when to pick your battles and be selective about when to be offended. Otherwise, you’ll burn yourself out or bleach your skin and try to create a whole other race or assimilate as inconspicuously as you can into another one.
Yes, Biden's comment was insulting and in poor taste, and I hope my president digs into his VP’s backside for saying such a thing. But compared to the policies that have been historically levied by presidents past to decimate our community in everything from the three strikes rule to pro-gentrification rezoning, it’s just a tiny boo boo on a body full of gashes and cuts. So I’m not allowing this to be a distraction. Puh-lease. Someone is about due to say or do something foolish again in about 24 hours, anyway, and this too shall pass.
Do you think his comments were offensive?
Image via DonkeyHotey/Flickr
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Comments 61
Oh no. I call dobule standard on this one. If the media is going to dig into every single word that Romney/Ryan says, then Biden/Obama is entitled to the same treatment. Can you imagine what you would be saying if Ryan made the same comment as Biden?
LOL I agree with AllisonWD, I'm so tired of white people saying everything wrong. If it was a black person saying it, it would have been considered "empowerment speech". Please........... get over yourselves!
And talk about distracting. The media focuses on thirty-year old dog stories and attack the persons of the canidates rather than actual facts. That's because the democrats don't have anything else to run on. So if they're going to use "distractions" to run their campaign, then it's only fair that the Republicans have opportunities to do the same.
I found this blog really really offensive. He was totally talking down to those people and thought he had every right to do it. He is a total and complete joke, and I mean that literally. I can't believe you will give this guys a pass because he has a D after his name. If Romney or Ryan said this you would crucify them and we are all getting sick of the double standard. If you want to excuse some old white man talking down to black people that's on you, but don't tell the rest of us we should be okay with it.
Allison- you made it sound like you were going to take the high road but the last part of your first comment was more offensive than Biden's comment. This is why we're still divided, not even as a country, but as a species.
I say we start a petition at change.org to get the CafeMom bloggers to stop addressing political issues until they can address them in a manner that proves they've at least left junior high. I am so sick of the juvenile, snarky, idiotic crap that these women call political analysis. This is just another in a long line of poorly written, vapid blogs masquerading as insightful political dialogue. These blogs make women look stupid and shallow.
If a Republican had said something that could be tape-splice edited into something that could be stretched into something that could be spun as something 1/1000 in that direction;
The democrats would be shrieking "RACISM!!!" from the rooftops for the next decade.
Well Krelia, I value you your opinion but I expect the leader of our country (if he had to be) to be a little smarter than he is and able to maintain credible trains of thought. Not to say F--k into open mikes and insult people willy nilly. He's not smart. He's a little too down to earth and he doesn't use his position to gain respect. People laugh at him NOT in a good way. Having beers in ones back yard and having the smarts to keep us out of war and handle high level decisions are two entirely different people and personalities. He'd be a great manager of a bowling alley. VP, not so much. In my opinion.
Well, of course Little Joey Biden gets a pass. First, he's a buffoon who probably can't go from one end of the room to the other without acting like a drunk frat boy. Second and far more important, he's a Liberal, so of course it's OK!
I wasn't offended, but I'm no Julia, so the Left's games don't concern me - but this was, without a doubt, race-baiting. And, I guess from the article we can assume, bait taken.