Former Vice President Joe Biden’s rejection in 1975 of forced busing — he argued that it might interfere with “the entire black awareness concept” — probably will not haunt him more than any of his dozens of other cringe-inducing episodes in 47 years in public life. In fact, some of the thoughts he offered then might actually serve him well among a Democratic electorate more obsessed with identity politics than ever before.
Still, the ideas he expressed that might actually help him are the very ones that should be most strongly rejected today.
At issue is a 1975 National Public Radio interview unearthed by the Washington Examiner’s Alana Goodman, in which Biden seems to question not just forced busing but also the wisdom of racial integration in general. The Internet already is full of people saying this purportedly segregationist stance might kill Biden’s chances for the presidency in 2020. Alas, I think otherwise.
First, nothing permanently sinks Biden: not plagiarism, not a life-threatening brain aneurysm, not his remarks on Barack Obama being “clean,” not his creepy hands-on policy with female visitors, and not any number of verbal gaffes of the sort that prove deadly to plenty of other politicians.
More importantly, the “black awareness concept” that he offered in defense of self-segregation is actually well in line with the zeitgeist of 21st century progressivism. All over the country, for example, colleges are now helping black students self-segregate in black-only dormitories and social organizations, black-only graduations, and (infamously) a blacks-only-allowed-on-campus day at radical Evergreen State College in Washington State.
Indeed, the language Biden used was quite obviously that of someone trying, however inelegantly, to express solidarity with black people, not to hold them down. He said that forcing blacks to integrate, against their will, “is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride, is 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.”
Compare that to a column published in the Huffington Post in September 2017 by black radio host and editor Earl Ofari Hutchinson, talking in very similar language about the merits of black-only dorms. He wrote that when he was a student in the late 1960s, “we demanded a separate black studies program, a separate black section in the campus newspaper, and a separate assembly space on the campus. There were no dorms on the campus then. But if there were dorms on campus then we may well have demanded separate living space in them too. This was the era of the black is beautiful and black empowerment movement and these demands came with the racial turf of the day.”
And, he said, this in no way detracted from their opposition to segregation, “which is legally, socially and culturally imposed on African-Americans.” One could oppose forced integration via disruptive means such as busing and still work for an end to racist laws and practices.
Biden is glib enough now to turn this old interview of his from a badge of shame into a political advantage. Campaign motto: Joe Biden – Already “woke” before woke was cool!
Still, and crucially, “cool” and “wise” aren’t necessarily the same. While reasonable people have argued for decades about whether particular forced-busing policies were helpful or harmful to race relations, Biden’s particular reasoning for opposing busing should not be seen as legitimate, no matter how loudly the modern racial identitarians yell for segregated dorms and ceremonies.
At the acknowledged risk of cheaply and wrong universalizing evidence that is merely anecdotal, please allow this personal reminiscence, relayed third-hand from my late father.
Dad, a Southerner, found the sheer idiocy of statutory segregation astonishing. He told of being at The Hill School in Pennsylvania in 1954 when the famous Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision came down. A teacher confronted him, knowing he was from Louisiana and Mississippi.
“Well, Hillyer, I guess you must be pretty upset about that court decision yesterday getting rid of segregated schools,” the teacher said.
My father took offense at the assumption that his views could be assumed just by virtue of his home state. Ever logical, sometimes in a way naively oblivious to how biases and emotions in others can overwhelm logic, he answered: “I don’t understand what the big deal is, when people get used to this. Why should it hurt anybody if black children sit next to white children to learn how to read and write?”
Dad was as conservative as they come, and he could never understand why people couldn’t be free to associate with whomever they wanted to. When he was in college and law school at Tulane, he would go listen to traditional jazz — and during the breaks between sets, the black musicians weren’t allowed (by law) to mingle with the audience, but would go to a back room or even alley to rest until the next set.
Dad, ignoring the rules against mingling, would sneak out to the back room or alley to hang out and listen to their old stories. Decades later, Dad would say, wistfully, that those gab sessions were some of his favorite memories, full of chances to learn from people the culture didn’t want him to socialize with, and to enjoy simple, shared humanity.
Joe Biden, bless his heart, actually was trying to express solidarity with black people when he made his arguments for the supposed benefits of segregation in 1975. But as long as anyone emphasizes black identity or white identity rather than human identity, the result will be not common cause, but division. It is that problem, not a 44-year-old re-airing of the busing debate, that Biden ( and the rest of us) should answer for today.
