As reported in the NYT and other places, including this rant at DK this morning, Joe Biden really stepped into the muck last night at a NYC fundraiser last night:
Biden’s comments drew fire from some of his rivals, including Kamala Harris, John Delaney, and Bill DeBlasio. From the NYT:
Senator Kamala Harris of California, who is also black, said she found Mr. Biden’s comments concerning. “If those men had their way, I wouldn’t be in the United States Senate and on this elevator right now,” she said, referring to Mr. Eastland and Mr. Talmadge, according to ABC News.
Other presidential candidates weighed in as well. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York posted a photo of his multiracial family on Twitter and cited a racial epithet that Mr. Eastland used.
“It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of ‘civility’ typified by James Eastland,” Mr. de Blasio wrote. “It’s past time for apologies or evolution from @JoeBiden. He repeatedly demonstrates that he is out of step with the values of the modern Democratic Party.”
The sharpest rebuke was from Cory Booker, who released the following statement:
“You don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys.’ Men like [Sen.] James O. Eastland [(D-Miss.)] used words like that, and the racist policies that accompanied them, to perpetuate white supremacy and strip black Americans of our very humanity,” Booker said in a statement Wednesday.
“And frankly, I’m disappointed that he hasn’t issued an immediate apology for the pain his words are dredging up for many Americans. He should,”
Bernie Sanders concurred:
Even Connie Schultz and her spouse, Senator Sherrod Brown did not mince words about Biden’s out of step remarks:
Ms. Schultz expanded her thoughts in this Medium essay, “He Never Called Me Boy”:
He never called me "boy." No mention of how "boy" was a common term of derision and disrespect for black men in the Jim Crow south, or how Biden's white skin determined Eastland's willingness to work with him. Instead, we're supposed to see Biden's ability to get along with a man who called black people "an inferior race" as a model for how to engage with civility in 2019.
snip
There were countless ways for Joe Biden to illustrate his willingness to work with those with whom he disagrees. This week, he chose to talk about his relationship with a white supremacist.
I've been writing about race throughout my journalism career, so I knew to expect criticism from some white people. Too many of them want to explain away the potential harm of Biden's comments for people who don't look like us. This defensiveness illustrates an enduring blind spot for many white liberals: No matter how committed we are to civil rights, we will never know what it feels like to be black or brown in America.
We [white people]don't have to think about our skin color the minute we walk out of our home. We never worry that we will enter a store and immediately become a suspect. We don't have to warn our children that one instance of racial profiling could lead to their deaths.
We never have to endure the daily assault of racism, and we need to stop acting like we do.
“Politicians should never speak positively of segregationists. Period,” Brown said on Capitol Hill to HuffPost.
Booker responds on CNN (sorry, no video, only have tweets):