Friday, July 24, 2020

Joe Biden Not the Guy to Give Lectures on Racism

Joe Biden called Donald Trump America's "First" racist president this week.

The collective shock of his supporters reflected not that he labeled the president of the United States a racist but that he absolved all of his predecessors from that sin.

"No sitting president has ever done this - never, never, never," Biden said at a Service Employees International Union virtual town hall in response to a question that cited the phrase "Chinese virus" used by Trump.

"No Republican president has done this, no Democratic president. We've had racists, and they've existed. They've tried to get elected president. He's the first one that has."

Just as sleazily, the court historians of these presidents attempt to shift the blame to J. Edgar Hoover, as though he served as the president and attorney general's boss rather than the reverse.

Democrats claimed for years that these two anathematized presidents founded their party.

When did Donald Trump say or do anything equal to this, let alone sinking beneath the ownership of black people, internment of Japanese people, or the vicious harassment of Martin Luther King? The party that embraces blackface governors cannot quite concede that Joe Biden sometimes emits an Ashley-Schaeffer-at-Black-Biker-Week vibe when dealing with African Americans.

No comments: