Vice President Biden says (and I believe him) that he decided to run for POTUS after Charlottesville and, specifically, after Trump equated the actions of Neo-Nazis and those Antifa members who defended the protesters against racism. “Good people on both sides” was the tipping point. Biden’s motivation was to work to bring healing and reconciliation to our badly divided country—divisions based on racial and ethnic injustice among a host of other longstanding, persistent, injustices. These injustices and divisions long preceded Trump (some have been with us since before the founding of this nation), but he has exploited and exacerbated them tenfold instead of working for justice, healing and peace.
But, noble as VP Biden’s reasons for running for POTUS might be, for many he is not an obvious candidate to heal our nation on any deep level. Like most, if not all, of us white folk, Biden has made many mistakes in the area of racial justice over the decades—the best of intentions marred by un-examined biases and deep-rooted prejudices that almost all of us have in one form or another—and which most of us white people are uncomfortable admitting or examining. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), in an early debate, called him on his role opposing busing in the 1960s, Others have rightly criticized his role as a primary author of the Crime Bill of the 1990s which accelerated our mass incarceration society and damaged so many communities of color.
The uprising against racist police violence is an inflection point. Trump is already using it to further inflame violence and division—his only path to victory. VP Biden could attempt to use it as a beginning point for our healing. I suggest (and I hope someone in his campaign reads DKos daily) that he address this crisis openly in a national speech. He should review the long history of racist policing in this nation—beginning with the slave patrols—while also affirming the good that most cops do on a daily basis and the strong work than many police departments have done at reform over the years. And yet, just as the pandemic has exposed vast fissures of racial and economic injustice in other aspects of our society, so does the murder of George Floyd (and Breonna Taylor in my home of Louisville, KY and so many others) shine a spotlight on how far we HAVEN’T come fighting institutional racism in policing.
VP Biden should publicly commit himself to implementing Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)’s plan for police and criminal justice reform. He should note that several of the Democratic candidates for POTUS had such plans (mention Sen. Harris’), but praise Sen. Booker’s as the most comprehensive (which it was) and vow to adopt it into his platform and to work directly with Sen. Booker and others in massive, systemic reform of American policing and criminal justice—with due attention to the specific histories of each particular state and city and community. (He should clear this with Sen. Booker ahead of time.) He should connect this with racist actions of ICE and HUD Sec. Julian Castro’s plan for immigration reform which includes a massive overhaul at ICE and Homeland Security as well as a “Marshall Plan” for Central America.
Biden should rebuke Trump’s call for more violence, should affirm the righteousness of the anger behind rioting and looting (the language of the unheard—MLK, Jr.), even while expressing sadness at the destruction and pain on innocents. He should conclude with a stirring call for justice, for whites to undertake the hard process of self-examination, for massive national conversations on race beyond comfort zones, for repentance and forgiveness, healing and peace.
This won’t be any form of magic pill that cures things. But it could be an opportunity to bring hope for real change. Biden got into this campaign because of Charlottesville. Maybe Minneapolis gives him a chance at an inflection point in the campaign—a vision beyond simply beating Trump and surviving COVID-19. Biden has said that the pandemic has led him to envision an FDR-scale presidency as the only adequate response. But, as much as I admire FDR, he did little to further the cause of racial justice because he needed to keep Southern segregationists in his coalition. Biden now has a chance to go beyond FDR and thoroughly link racial and economic justice and healing—and to begin now with a public address on the murder of George Floyd, Brionna Taylor and so many others.
I sincerely hope he takes up this call and rises to the occasion.