Joe Biden is no stranger to facing criticism after making a comment that some deemed racist.
The presumptive Democratic nominee’s statement that those who are unsure about whether to vote for President Trump or him “ain’t black” caused some commentators to recall other past Biden statements that could be considered racially problematic.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden said Friday.
The comment came at the end of an interview on The Breakfast Club radio program, during which the former vice president fielded pointed questions on his record with minority issues that touched on marijuana legalization and the 1994 crime bill.
“What I would like to see is clear, accurate, consistent, fair coverage of the inflammatory things said by Democrats on a consistent basis,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, said in a Trump campaign press call Friday. “The more passes the media gives the Democrats on race-baiting, the more often they’re going to do it.”
Here are five other racial comments from Biden that drew scrutiny:
2019: “Poor kids are just as smart as white kids”
Biden stumbled over his words at an August campaign stop in Iowa at a town hall for the Asian & Latino Coalition PAC.
“The other thing we should do is we should challenge these students. We should challenge students in these schools that have Advanced Placement programs in these schools. We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it,” he began.
“Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” Biden said before correcting himself, mentioning “wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids.”
2012: “Put you all back in chains”
At an Obama reelection campaign event in front of a largely black audience in Virginia, Biden criticized the Republican ticket, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, for its economic policies. An addition to the economic point caused many to think the remark was racially divisive.
“He’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street,” Biden said of Romney, before adding: “They’re going to put you all back in chains.”
While the Obama campaign asserted that Biden’s comment was not a reference to slavery, others disagreed. Then-Rep. Charles Rangel, a black Democrat from New York, said, “You bet your ass he was” talking “about slavery,” adding that it was a “stupid” remark.
2007: Called Obama “articulate and bright and clean”
When evaluating the field of 2008 Democratic presidential candidates just before he was set to announce his own candidacy, Biden shared his thoughts on then-Sen. Barack Obama.
“You got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man,” Biden told the New York Observer. He later said he regretted any offense the quote caused.
Obama said that he was not offended by Biden’s comments but called them “historically inaccurate.”
“African American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate,” Obama said.
2006: “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent”
While Biden was considering launching a bid for the 2008 presidential election, C-SPAN cameras in 2006 captured a comment he made while shaking an Indian American man’s hand.
“I’ve had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” Biden said.
Following criticism, he later said that his comment was “meant as a compliment.”
1975: Segregation is a matter of “black pride”
In the 1970s, Biden opposed busing black students to desegregate schools and sponsored anti-busing legislation — a position that California Sen. Kamala Harris highlighted in a scathing exchange in the first Democratic presidential primary debate last year.
Biden defended not only busing but segregation in a 1975 NPR interview.
“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, adding that desegregation efforts are “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied, and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.”
