Okay. Joe Biden caused some controversy by saying the following about Barack Obama:
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Or, alternatively:
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American. Who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Either way, it was a bone-headed thing to say that is going to cause Biden grief (both deserved and undeserved). Someone noted the famous riff of Chris Rock, and it definitely bears repeating in this context.
Whenever Colin Powell is on the news, white people give him the same compliments: ‘How do you feel about Colin Powell?’, ‘He speaks so well! He’s so well spoken. I mean he really speaks so well!’ Like that’s a compliment, sh*t. ‘He speaks so well’ is not a compliment, okay? ‘He speaks so well’ is some sh*t you say about retarded people that can talk. What do you mean he speaks so well? He’s a fuc*ing educated man! How the fu*k you expect him to sound, you dirty motherfuc*er? ‘He speaks so well.’ What are you talking about? What voice were you expecting to come out of his mouth? ‘Imma drop me a bomb today’, ‘I be Pwez-o-dent!’.”
Great comedy is made when a funny person makes a really great point that hits home in a painful way and it still makes you laugh. Chris Rock absolutely nailed his point on how blacks are given points just for being able to speak clearly and how that is incredibly insulting. And a lot of people are feeling that same sting from Biden’s remarks. I can’t dismiss those feelings. They’re legitmate feelings. But I gotta say something.
Barack Obama is not articulate for a black man. Barack Obama is one of the most articulate politicians in American society today. If I were to make a list, I would put Bill Clinton at the very top. And I don’t want to strain my brain here, but Obama would come very shortly thereafter. The most striking thing about Obama is his charisma, and his communication skills are the biggest part of his charisma. Yeah, he is nice looking. He has a captivating smile. He has kind eyes. He has a warm and comforting voice. He has a whole package. But his clear enunciation, his excellent syntax, his sentence construction, and his gift of emphasis are all parts of a remarkable oratorical skill. And he’s as good one-on-one on Jay Leno as he is in a stadium before a national television audience. Obama’s speaking skills and charisma are what makes it less than flat-out insane for a two-year veteran of the Senate to have the presumption to run for President.
Anyone that doesn’t mention the articulateness of Barack Obama isn’t expressing the nature of his personality and the root of his power as a national politician.
Obama is not articulate. Joe Biden is articulate. Barack Obama is exceptionally articulate.
And everyone knows this. In fact, the bulk of the criticism I have seen from Democrats about Obama is that his only virtue is his articulateness. People want to see more than nice presentation, they want some details and red meat.
Joe Biden was, first of all, trying to express the appeal of Obama. See…first he gives you the good points and then he tells you why they aren’t good enough. He’s giving us a reason not to vote for Obama, but he is doing it the second part of comment and not in the part being quoted.
Biden is saying that ‘yes, he’s mainstream, he’s black but that isn’t gonna hurt him because he has cross-over appeal, he’s not just some fringe candidate like Keyes or Sharpton, he’s the real deal. He’s articulate. He doesn’t have a lot baggage. He’s not going to get accused of corruption. He’s a great looking guy. I mean…shit yeah…that’s a dreamy combination. How could you not like the guy? But…’
And here’s what Biden said next.
But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”
Biden’s saying that the guy is not up to handling Iraq and that the public is gonna look at him and like him but at the end of the day they are not gonna see Obama as ready for the big time.
Now, I know people are looking at other things Biden has said recently that were less than stellar from a racial sensitivity standpoint. But even taking that into account, I think people are just wrong to attribute some kind a latent racism behind Biden’s remarks.
Any asshole that takes away bankruptcy protection from single mothers is obviously suffering from a lack of compassion for minorities in this country. I am not about to suggest Joe Biden ‘gets it’. He clearly does not. He’s out of touch and he is a joke on urban issues and looking after the poor. But he doesn’t have hate in his heart. He didn’t mean to offend anyone with this remark. He’s running for President. He was trying to explain why Obama is a compelling candidate but that he is a better qualified candidate.
You wanna kill him for it? Go ahead. I just wanna be fair to the guy. I think he is getting a raw deal.
Biden mentioned that he was “clean.” That’s what struck me the most in the characterization. Did he mean “clean-cut”, and if so, among African-Americans, how would that distinction be made? Among white people, I believe it arose as describing something antithetical to long-haired and too casually dressed men.
Did he mean “without scandal”?
But if he meant “clean” as opposed to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, he is betraying a lingering racism that suspects “the other” as “dirty.”
In my humble caucasian opinion.
As I mentioned elsewhere, he obviously was not referring to the frequency with which Barack Obama bathes himself. He was probably using it as short-hand for ‘fresh’, ‘no baggage’, and ‘nicely dressed, good presentation’.
Would he have said “clean” if he were referring to you, Booman?
Why would he spontaneously use a word that is used far too often to characterize persons with non-white skin – when they are different from how the describer sees the majority of persons of non-white skin.
You don’t want to hear a list of how I’ve had that term used to describe to me various Black persons I’ve known!
I know it can be and has been interpreted that way and I understand why people are not too keen to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s only my opinion.
But he followed it up by saying ‘nice-looking guy’ and I think he was already thinking about the nice-looking part when he said ‘clean’. I think he meant well-dressed, nice presentation…with a little bit of ‘fresh’ ‘new’ ‘no baggage’ thrown in.
I do not think he meant to imply that Obama was a well-bathed negro as opposed to others that ran for President and were not.
I know it is charged language and that is why he is getting hammered for it. I just really doubt that people are correctly interpreting what is in his heart.
As I said, he does not get it. He does not represent poor people, he doesn’t relate to the African-American community, he doesn’t have any of Clinton’s natural empathy and affinity, he’s a schmuck.
But a racist? Only in the sense that he is alienated and isolated and does not get it.
As I said, he does not get it. He does not represent poor people, he doesn’t relate to the African-American community, …
But a racist? Only in the sense that he is alienated and isolated and does not get it.
This would be exactly my point in criticizing Biden. What is this bar that people want to hold up called “racism” and somehow anything below that line is ok? This canard is used all the time to deflect things that are incredibly hurtful and insensitive. Just because someone isn’t saying “blacks are inferior” doesn’t mean its innocent and not part of the problem.
All of us have a responsibility to learn and understand to the best of our ability – especially someone in his position. He hasn’t take the time to “get it” in any sense. That’s a serious problem – whether you want to call it racism or not.
I agree that Powell is no stemwinder as a public speaker, but that’s not what Biden is talking about.
Biden is saying that Obama speaks without sounding like OTHER BLACK PEOPLE. And those other black people mean those who aren’t quick to take offense, who don’t speak ghetto, and who didn’t or barely finished high school in questionable neighborhoods.
I think I know already what he has stood for in the past–especially the near past–what exactly is in his heart.
At the most, he’s a closet racist. It’s only brought out at unmixed cocktail parties in Georgetown.
He used this and other depictions of his competitors to put them down while puffing himself.
He’s a sad sight.
(Note: One of my neighbors around the corner from me said she and her husband thought about supporting him for president–him being a Catholic and all. I said, don’t. She’s temporarily in Washington State and won’t return until May. I wonder what she thinks right now, since this shit has hit the fan.)
to say shit like that.
Racism is a lot more insidious, cloaked and encoded.
It riles me when people can’t believe that black people have other interests other than being black people.
It riles me when people with less sense than I originally thought believe that my behavior should fit what my color and my size present.
It riles me that most white people get their information about black people from television, whether it is news or sitcoms or dramadies rather than real time, right now.
And finally, it gets me riled that somebody like Biden could still use these code words (articulate meaning not like those other black people!) and expect that he won’t get criticized for it.
Fuck him.
Your brown raza brother agrees…Biden said everything the most daming..”he’s a credit to his race.” But if you add all of Biden’s adjectives together..he just about did it.
Well Biden..didn’t he vote for that hideous Bankruptcy bill..what his nickname MBNA Biden?
yeah, but what I am trying to say is that with Obama I don’t think it is the same as it was with Colin Powell. Powell is not one of the great orators of our time. So, making a big deal of his coherence is just short-hand for saying ‘not like those others’.
But not with Obama, and not when you are laying out with strengths. He was laying out his strengths.
I already can tell that ‘people of color’ are reacting stronger to Biden because it fits in with a pattern. And there is a developing pattern recently with Joey making some dubious comments. But taking this comment in isolation and in my perceived context, I think it is totally innocent.
I respect those that see it another way. But I just don’t see it as somehow disrespectful of Jesse Jackson or of black people generally. He is just a foot-in-mouth kind of really smart dumbass.
IMO.
‘People of color’..come on boo I’m white and think his whole statement was extremely offensive and racist and have said so.
I guess the question is why can’t Biden just “Obama cannot be taken lightly and has solid strengths and credentials.” No need for all those adjectives…”clean” does Obama use Zest or Soap?
I’m white, Booman. I think it is terribly offensive.
Would you feel the same way if he said (about a candidate with somewhat different “first” characteristics):
“He’s the first, Mainstream Jew that is honest and bright and good-looking. . ”
or
“She’s the first, Mainstream female that is logical, bright and nonemotional and speaks well . . . ??
I think your post is direct and too the point.
Try this:
Hillary Clinton is the first woman to ever run for President that has a chance of winning the nomination let alone the Presidency. She has unique skills and experience, she is articulate, tough, and wears exceptionally sharp pantsuits. Never before has a woman had this combination of appeal. But, when the public looks at her they are gonna feel like she just doesn’t have a good plan on Iraq and she doesn’t understand the Middle East as well as I do. I’ll be a better president and the country is going to realize that once we get a chance to debate.
Would that offend me? Shit no. I love her pantsuits. Especially the pink ones.
okay the pantsuits thing is an inside joke and I dont mean to be unserious about this. Not at all.
Yes, I’m aware it is an inside joke – though I’m not an insider. I do think you need to give the idea of tacit racism – unintended but nevertheless present in the dominant culture, a bit more consideration, Booman. I think it’s a blind spot for you.
But the point is Biden would make a comment on how nice her hair is and how she is alway fashionable in her pant suits.
OK, you aren’t offended – neither was Biden! But I find that remark inappropriate. Why mention her clothing? Or are you writing a story on the fashion of the presidential candidates? Putting the clothing in with the other descriptives sounds odd, if not outright silly.
I even think it’s possible that there might be a male or two out there who would find it irrelevant – even sexist – that her clothing was mentioned. I can’t think of when a male candidate’s clothing was mentioned positively along with other positive characteristics.
That would offend me. What do her pantsuits have to do with anything? It would be like the news reporting on Pelosi’s first 100 hours in Congress, summing up all she had accomplished with: She wore Armani, Prada, Klein and we love those pink pantsuits.
Whether Biden intends to be a racist, sexist, patronizing asshole is besides the point. What’s in Biden’s heart is besides the point as well. He ought to be more careful about what he says.
My color is a sort of blotchy beige except for the bits that reddened by Biden’s racism. I’ll restate what I said in another thread. I’ve lived as a minority in a predominately black community for 13 years. I teach Black kids almost exclusively. Living in Detroit has been a mind opening experience because racism isn’t theoretical anymore. I see what the cost everyday in broken lives. A colleague of Kidspeak’s has done research on the health costs to Blacks of racism.
I doubt Biden’s comments were intentional racist. As has been pointed out, that makes them worse.
re: Brad’s comments down thread. Yes there is a war on. But this country was poisoned at its inception by slavery. The racism that is slavery’s legacy still gnaws at the soul of America. I cannot see any circumstances, including the disastrous and evil war in Iraq, that are more harmful to America than racism. And I know of nothing that is more important than to call out and challenge racist comments, particularly from a man who thinks he should be our leader.
i declared I was done defending Joey, so I won’t respond to this other than to say that my whole point is that I do not think his comment was racist. I think it was inartfully put and it does indicate a certain level of cluelessness.
Before this kerfuffle Biden was at least irrelevent. Now he’s become relevent because he’s managed to shift media focus even further away from what’s important. I don’t mean that issues of race aren’t important. I mean that there’s a war going on and another on the horizon and this distraction is not a good development.
Yes there is a war on. But this country was poisoned at its inception by slavery. The racism that is slavery’s legacy still gnaws at the soul of America. I cannot see any circumstances, including the disastrous and evil war in Iraq, that are more harmful to America than racism. And I know of nothing that is more important than to call out and challenge racist comments, particularly from a man who thinks he should be our leader.
Well, racism is never irrelevant. I could argue that the war in Iraq has a very real component of racism thrown into the mix and how many people in this country discuss or talk about the Iraqi people…when they bother to think of them at all and what is happening to their country.
You’re right in one way that Biden’s remarks are just dumb even irrelevant(as he’ll never be president) yet the underlying attitude of his and that of so many many people like him -basically unconscious racism do make it relevant. Or there wouldn’t be this big discussion going on about how words and their underlying meaning do have an effect on everyone who hears them.
Joe Biden’s criticism about Obama (which was also about Iraq) lacks some serious substance, considering that the option Biden supports – splitting Iraq into 3 ethnic states – is a recipe for an even worse situation. Not only that, I haven’t heard Biden come out with a definitive plan for the troops to come home. Obama has.
I still think Biden is racially insensitive at the very least, although he’s such a pandering fool at times that it’s hard to separate it at times. Whether he’s a racist or not is not for me to judge. But it’s clear that he has some issues he needs to work out. Or, as James Wolcott put it, those hairplugs have become a bit too ingrown.
Oh, at least a couple of names come to mind very very rapidly: Sen. Edward Brooke, Gov. Douglas Wilder.Not to mention a host of other fine Black leaders – and not all male, either! Is it that Biden didn’t see them as Black? Not articulate, clean, bright?
Or maybe Biden is saying “I didn’t see anyone like him before so those others don’t really count?”
It’s those words “first, Mainstream” that are revealing of the lack of awareness. It’s that lack of awareness that is disturbing.
IMO most people who make comments like Biden’s rarely mean to offend. But those folks who say things like he did, are saying, in effect “he’s a credit to his race”, or “he’s an anomaly for his race”, and they don’t understand that they are being offensive. I don’t think that a lot of white people naturally understand that offense is not necessarily in the intentions of the person uttering the words. It’s in the ear of the one who hears it.
Biden’s apology tonight:
“This is a guy who’s come along in a way that’s captured the imagination of the country in a way that no one else has. That was the point of everything I was saying,”
Now to my ears, (sorry, Booman) I hear him saying:
“This is a (colored) guy who’s come along in a way that’s captured the imagination of the country in a way that no (other colored guy) has. That was the point of everything I was saying,”
IMHO, Biden’s finished and he should be.
if you insist on hearing it that way then that is the way you are going to hear it.
I don’t really care about Joe Biden’s presidential ambitions. I would never trust him to carry our banner even if I was ideologically attuned to his positions both domestic and foreign. If this kills his campaign in its cradle, it won’t upset me.
But, I hate to see the left act like the right, and that is what I feel like in this situation.
I do respect what you are saying about Biden’s true intentions here, and I’m sure you are right. Even Jesse Jackson gave Biden a pass on this today (and if anybody has a right to be directly offended, I would think it would be Jackson.) But I still think that this latest dunderheaded remark (esp. when considered as part of an ongoing series of dunderheaded remarks, going back to the 7-11, Dunkin’ Donuts gaffe) is symptomatic of an underlying insensitivity on Joey’s part.
hard to say which is more destructive. when people come out in the hatred vein, they can be more easily dismissed as marginal and irrational.
But the ignorance is more insidious, and least examined.
And the ignorance is based on our mostly segregated experiences in this country, by class and by race.
And though maybe our attitudes or values oppose racism, how much of our time is actually spent in multiracial settings, and how much of that has degrees of intimacy?
Test. You are in a crisis. You have a choice of leaning on 5 friends. How many of those friends are outside of your cultural/”racial” circle?
I flunked.
I grew up the son of a mother that taught Head Start in Montclair/Glen Ridge, New Jersey. My playmates were white and black by the deliberate efforts of my mother. I live in a black neighborhood of Philadelphia. I spent 2004 in black neighborhoods working employing black people to register black people. So, my experiences are different from a lot of people of my race and my background. And I see Joe Biden as the kind of guy that just doesn’t have the kind of experiences that lead him to understand intuitively how black people feel or how they experience our society differently. He means well, but he doesn’t relate. He’s like countless other people in our society that are decent good-hearted people that don’t understand how things really go down in the city or how they go down when you are discriminated against.
And it is a problem. Is Hillary better? Yeah, I think she is. I think she gets it on a much deeper level. But, will that be reflected in her policies? I’m not very confident of that.
In any case, I think Joe is a decent guy. I think accusing him of being hateful is ludicrous. He definitely has some basic prejudice. But more of the insidious unintentional kind that you refer to.
Do we really have to ask which is worse? Macaca or Dunkin’ Donuts? One is based in hate and one is based in ignorance and laziness.
Okay. I think I am done defending Joey. He really doesn’t deserve this level of defense from me. I just have an ideal of basic fairness than feels like it has been violated here.
and some Dems should know better.
Biden’s problem isn’t malice or conscious racism. It’s unconscious racism (and sexism and classism, based on the rest of his remarks). The question isn’t whether he’s a bad man, it’s whether, in this day and age, someone as clueless as that is qualified to be president of a nation as diverse as the United States.
Thirty years ago, it would have been hard to find many mature politicians who weren’t clueless in that regard. But as we near the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it’s a deal-breaker. When it comes to race, gender, and class, “not getting” it is almost as bad as not getting why you can’t bomb the southern flank of Asia into complacent America-loving democrats.
Being malicious is not the only disqualifier for the office of president. Being flat-out ignorant of the real world is another. And frankly, the last thing we need right now is another president whose main ambition is to direct foreign policy. The country is falling apart, and Biden does not belong to a generation or class that is capable of even seeing that.
well, I can’t believe it’s not plain why this is a revealing comment, why the shear idiocy of this comment isn’t obvious.
Do people feel the need to describe Bill Clinton as “articulate” to differentiate him from other hillbillies in the south? How about Biden, or Hillary Clinton or even Russ Feingold (WI is FULL of ignorant white people)?
Why is this hard to understand? There are plenty of poor, uneducated whites growing up without education, yet NO ONE feels the need to point out that Vilsack and Warner are “articulate” (which they aren’t, but still …) in comparison to the hicks and rednecks from their constituents, yet Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and Colin Powell have to constantly be “complimented” by the likes of Biden.
Why is this hard to understand?
Anyone who’s been “his own biggest fan” for as long as Biden has is never a good choice for election to high office. The ego alone prevents the intuitive grasp of important issues across a wide enough swath of society, so that positive effect rarely occurs under such leadership.
Similarly, for people in positions of authority, even the sort of careless ignorance we so often display can be immensely destructive, almost as destructive as the weaponized ignorance that so dominates the political realm today.
I’d have quite a large measure of respect for Biden if he’d announce tomorrow he’s withdrawing his bid for the presidency. But, of course I won’t be holding my breath.
This is just where I am on the Presidential candidates right now.
Any Democratic Senator who is running for President and thinking about not running for re-election right now has very poor strategic judgment (I will grant an exception for Joe Biden but only if he can find a Senate candidate from Delaware who isn’t in hock to the financial industry). Putting a 51-49 Senate at risk is not my idea of sound judgment. That in my mind eliminates from my consideration at the moment Biden, Dodd, Obama, Clinton, and although the House is not in as dire straits, Kucinich.
That leaves Edwards (who has confessed to poor judgment in foreign policy–Iraq–and to poor judgment in politics–running in 2004), Clark, and Richardson. I probably have missed somebody. The choices are charisma, command, and balanced experience. I think any one of these three would perform well, but they would have to staff their administrations differently in order to play to their strengths.
But then, I have only one vote and given when the North Carolina primary is, that one vote won’t mean a lot in determining who is the Democratic candidate.
Biden and Obama and Clinton and the press. Getting drawn into those sorts of stories is not what is going to win the primary or the general election. There are only two issues: what the Republicans have done over the past seven years and what a Democratic president will do if elected. Engaging in DC-speak color commentary (bad pun) does not get that conversation with the American people done. Nor does trumpeting the idea that you are going to have a conversation with the American people. We Democrats have had enough of promises; we want to see action and see it fast.
If nothing else, Biden will claim the record for shortest presidential candidacy ever. By “clean” I assumed he meant scandal-free. The frivolousness of his candidacy is that he evidently expected people with credit card balances to vote for him: it’ll never happen. His candidacy was dead the day he pushed for the credit card bankrupcy bill. Who else voted for it? (At least Wes Clark is off the hook for that crime against humanity.)
You know? You raise a very important point. Joe Biden is going to lose in the primaries and he is going to lose very badly. That would have been true whether or not he had a macaca moment.
And we should think for a minute about why he was going to lose. He was going to lose, above all, because of that vote on the bankruptcy bill which made it too hot for anyone to even consider backing him.
The world would be better off if Joe’s political obituary attributed his loss to the bankruptcy bill rather than to some dumbass remark about the cleanliness of Barack Obama.
Let’s be real here.
I should note that Obama voted NAY and Clinton was NOT PRESENT.
posted in orange.