DES MOINES, Iowa — Joe Biden Wednesday bragged about time he spent in the “hood,” a place where he said he found “women of color” he helped train to do computer coding.
Speaking at a rally, the former vice president elaborated on how U.S. workers need to receive better education to prepare themselves for a changing economy, and used a visit to Detroit, Mich., to describe how businesses went to local organizations that help train minorities various coding and technical abilities.
“Through a program we had through community colleges, we can teach people how to code,” Biden said. “We went out, literally into the hood, and they found, turns out, 54 [people], they happened to be all women, the vast majority were women of color, no more than a high school degree, aged 25-54, and a third of them only had GEDs.”
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The use of “hood” drew nervous laughter from some Democrats in the audience. One person let out a “yikes,” but later cheered for Biden at the end of his anecdote.
Words like “ghetto,” “hood,” and “thug” have come under scrutiny recently by activists for supposedly having a loaded meaning. In the past, Biden has found himself in hot water for racially insensitive language and opposing efforts to integrate the nation’s schools.
In 2007, during his last White House run, Biden described then-Sen. Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” During his time in the Senate, Biden opposed a federal busing program to help desegregate schools.
“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” Biden said at the time.
[Also read: Women of color frustrated with white males in Democratic primary]
Biden has previously seemed to try to ingratiate himself with black voters in awkward ways.
“I still walk down the street in the black side of town,” he told the Washington Post in 1975. “Mousey and Chops and all the boys at 13th, and — I can walk in those pool halls, and quite frankly don’t know another white man involved in Delaware politics who can do that kind of thing.”
More recently, as vice president to Barack Obama during the 2012 reelection campaign, Biden told an audience that included many African Americans that Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, will “put you all back in chains.”
