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Joe Biden's answer on how to address the legacy of slavery was appalling -- and disqualifying.
It ended in a sermon implying that black parents don't know how to raise their own children.
This cannot go on.
#DemDebate
The answer to a madman presidency isn’t a “Mad Men” presidency. https://twitter.com/msnbc/status/1172962317472059393 …
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Anand Giridharadas Retweeted
Lastly, it is up to every voter how they vote. And up to the African-American community whether they continue to place faith in Biden.
But anti-black racism is not something we should leave black people to fight alone. It is an assault on America itself.
I leave you with this inspiration from Toni Morrison.
Racism, she says so sharply here, is about making yourself central, and refusing to see that you’ve done so.
Paul McCallion
Joe Biden is a kindhearted man, and I hope that he doesn't squander his legacy staying in this race and blurting blasts from this nation's racial past.
He has earned the right to repose, step back, and be taken care of by new leadership worthy of the future.
We just marked 400 years since 1619, when the first enslaved Africans arrived. Four centuries of systemic oppression followed.
Throughout that time, a racist trope in American life has been to blame the black predicament on black behavior.
Biden revived that. It's time to exit.
Joe Biden's policies are fine.
The problem is that his worldview is one that so many people of color confront every day: a worldview in which Americanness means whiteness, even if the bearer of the worldview doesn't mean to think that way or know they do.
Many Biden defenders say that calling out his racist statements only helps Trump. On the contrary, nominating Biden would help neutralize Trump's gravest liability.
And I recently got a private message, unsolicited, from a Trump campaign-related organization that shows why.
If Joe Biden is America's Uncle, America's Uncle has a racism problem that we need to speak about truthfully.
@JoyAnnReid created space for an important, in-depth conversation this morning about what we do when leaders with good hearts are steeped in the age of "Mad Men."
Anand Giridharadas Retweeted
Why Joe Biden should drop out: my morning discussion with @JoyAnnReid on @amjoyshow is up.
But I will not be silent as we are told that the antidote to the poison of white supremacy in the White House is the casual mid-twentieth-century racism in which whiteness was the center and everyone else a guest.
And if you think I’m out of my mind, good news: There is the rest of the pundit class for you.
And thanks to thoughts like this, I will probably never have my own show, and never replace Bret Stephens on the Op-Ed page of the @nytimes.
This is the gentle racism of where are you from oh you speak such good English can I touch your hair oh I could never pronounce that can I have that in a medium oh you don’t work here sorry why didn’t your parents give you a more professional name do you have a dad, etc., etc.
This is difficult because he is the frontrunner, and everyone agrees beating Trump is paramount. I write in that spirit and with that hope.
Joe Biden seems like a kind and decent guy. He served Barack Obama well. And his country.
But America is hugely changing, and he has not made the renovations necessary to lead it into the future.
It is possible to rewire yourself. Hard but possible. He has chosen not to.
When you are running against a white supremacist and a misogynist, you want your nominee to be impeccable on those issues.
You don’t want those existential questions neutralized by past tapes and comments and shoulder rubs.
There are others his age in the race. They don’t talk like him.
It isn’t just terminology. It is a mental model in which: American means white, poor means black, clean and articulate black people are a nice surprise, and the effects of systemic oppression are the victims’ fault.
No sensible person thinks Joe Biden is a racist in the flagrant tradition.
But he is steeped and anchored in, and unable to educate himself out of, racism in the insidious tradition.
There are at least two traditions of racism in American life — the flagrant and the insidious.
Racism with a hood, and racism with a smile.
Racism that bombs churches, and racism that asks to touch your hair.
The racism of David Duke, and the racism of Thanksgiving Uncle.
Joe Biden should be careful not to plagiarize the Moynihan Report while drafting this major speech.
A great chance for Joe Biden to expand on his ideas about how our real racial problem isn’t slavery’s legacy but black parenting skills.
Also, inexplicably, @JoeBiden did not take me up on my offer to DM and explain himself. I left my phonograph on all night in case he messaged.
In just under an hour on @amjoyshow, we’re going to have the talk about Joe Biden that much of the media doesn’t want to have.
Tune in.
will probably go down in history as the moment Biden started to loose his hold on the black vote, and hence, when he lost he dem. nomination.
With this sonorous and immediately historic speech, @zephoria has not only done us all a service. She has also shown herself to be the kind of leader who might just be able to change a place like the Media Lab.
I’ve found my own place and am very happy doing what I do. But there is a generation coming up behind me that sees the world differently, that sees humanity more capaciously, that isn’t habituated to supremacy; and it is time to give them space.
So many of the people who did see, who did hear, who were aghast, and there were probably millions of us, are people who will never get their own TV show or Op-Ed column.
Trust me. I asked for mine. It was no.
At this time, we cannot afford people who do not see, whose lives have been an education in not-seeing.
The epic pundit fail in not hearing, or grasping the significance of, Joe Biden’s racist outburst makes it clear that we need not only a new generation of leaders but also of interpreters of our leaders.
Anand Giridharadas Retweeted
It is disappointing to see many pundits obsessing over whether one candidate was deferential enough to another, while this crucial moment is barely being discussed.
“Civility” is too often used as a dog whistle for tone policing, while concerning moments like these get a pass.
The ability to see is a function of what you have seen. And so long as there is such scanty diversity and diverse leadership in many corners of media, in who gets TV shows, etc., there will be a lot of not-seeing.
Biden’s racial disaster is, first, a story about Biden. But that so many political wise people barely noticed it at first, made vinyl jokes, and thought he had a great night — these things reveal that it’s also a story about the dominance of the white gaze in construing politics.
I invite @JoeBiden to DM me an actual, human explanation of his slavery answer last night before tomorrow’s show. Box is open.
I will be on @amjoyshow with @JoyAnnReid at 10 a.m. Eastern tomorrow to talk about Biden’s seminal Record Player Moment.
I will try to be as vocal as the 1,000 pundits who think he did amazing.
Starting to think Joe Biden didn't hear enough words as a child.
I propose a change in approach.
Let's start trying culpable members of the Sackler family for negligent homicide.
Right now, we're getting played.
Also, how does something watched by millions of people get "overlooked"?
The reception of the racist moment itself reveals how racism functions.
.@nytimes also has a story up on the Record Player Moment, but it portrays it as one of rambling and incoherence rather than what I saw: flat-out racism.
"JOE BIDEN’S STUNNINGLY RACIST ANSWER ON THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED"
Now, that is a headline.
@ryangrim, in @theintercept, picks up on and contextualizes what much of the press continues to ignore.
Anand Giridharadas Retweeted
Biden gives the far right ammunition to "both sides" the racism issue. That is dangerous and doesn't make him the paragon of electability people imagine.
Read this immediately.
@JamilSmith is bringing a truth bomb you're not going to hear from old-guard pundits who frankly don't even see or hear racism when it's out in the open.
Jamil is right. Biden should drop out today and make room for a truly anti-racist foil for Trump.
