The Democratic Party has long enjoyed the support of black voters — support that presidential candidate Joe Biden now seems to be taking for granted.
In an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, host of The Breakfast Club, on Friday morning, Biden claimed that the choice African American voters will face at the ballot box this November isn’t really a choice at all. And then, he said the quiet part out loud.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden said.
So this happened… “If you got a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump then you ain’t Black.”
–@JoeBiden to @cthagod pic.twitter.com/IdnyxSAY5k— Maliek Blade (@MaliekBlade) May 22, 2020
Few outside conservative circles will find this comment troubling. But it is troubling, even if it was meant as a joke, because it dismisses the value and concerns of black voters while further solidifying the feeling of ostracization that many black conservatives said they’ve felt over the past few years. (Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has famously spoken out against the disparate treatment he’s faced from his own community because of his conservative views, as has Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.)
I don’t claim to speak on behalf of the black community, but I have heard similar concerns from some black voters. When I asked one black friend of mine what he thought about Biden’s comment, he said that it will likely further perpetuate the “stigma” that some black voters fear. Another said Biden’s comments reveal that he cares more about black votes than about the problems facing the African American community.
What’s interesting is that this view — vote for me or betray your community — is unusual for Biden. Just last week, he encouraged those voters who believe Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who accused him of sexual assault, to vote their conscience: “If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.”
Why didn’t Biden afford this same freedom to African American voters? According to one of my friends, it is because he knows he doesn’t need to. This is, unfortunately, a common mindset, my friend said, but few people outside the black community are bold enough to vocalize it.
Biden’s comments even put Charlamagne Tha God on edge: “It don’t have nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with the fact — I want something for my community,” he shot back.
The black community has done a lot for Biden’s campaign, which Biden seems to understand. But the flippant comment he made Friday morning made it seem like he’s taken their support for granted. Black voters want to know they’ll get a return on their investment, and right now, the best Biden can offer is his experience alongside the first black president and dodgy answers about his support for the 1994 crime law that led to the mass incarceration of thousands of young black men.
Instead of engaging with these concerns in good faith, Biden suggested that it doesn’t matter what black voters want, because either way, they’ll get more from him than they will from Trump. A quick comparison of Trump’s criminal justice reform record to Biden’s suggests otherwise. Regardless, this kind of transactional thinking doesn’t bode well for Biden’s campaign, which until now advertised itself as a campaign that listens and understands.
Perhaps Biden deserves the benefit of the doubt. He’s had a difficult time putting together competent sentences as of late, and this might just be his latest blunder. But he should apologize. Black Americans deserve the right to vote for the party they believe in without feeling like toy soldiers or traitors. But Biden’s comment has left them with little other choice.
