- Former Vice President Joe Biden said that “at least there was some civility” while working with racist senators in the 1970s.
- Multiple Democrats condemned Biden’s comments, calling for him to apologize and evolve.
- Biden’s comments link to past issues where he supported segregationists and their agenda.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s comments that “at least there was some civility” during his time working with segregationist senators in the 1970s prompted backlash from other 2020 Democratic presidential nominees.
Biden talked about his time working with senators who opposed desegregation and civil rights in the 1970s during a fundraising event in New York Tuesday. He mentioned Mississippi Sen. James Eastland and Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge and suggested that working with people who were racist was more productive than how things currently worked.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said Tuesday according to CNN. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
“Well guess what? At least there was some civility,” Biden said. “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called Biden out for his remarks on Wednesday morning.
“You don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys,’” Booker said in a statement according to CNN. “Men like James O. Eastland used words like that, and the racist policies that accompanied them, to perpetuate white supremacy and strip black Americans of our very humanity.”
“Vice President Biden’s relationships with proud segregationists are not the model for how we make America a safer and more inclusive place for black people, and for everyone,” Booker’s statement continued. “I have to tell Vice President Biden, as someone I respect, that he is wrong for using his relationships with Eastland and Talmadge as examples of how to bring our country together.”
De Blasio echoed similar criticism, calling on Biden to apologize and evolve on Twitter Wednesday. De Blasio also said that Biden is “out of step with the values of the modern Democratic Party.”
It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of “civility” typified by James Eastland. Eastland thought my multiracial family should be illegal & that whites were entitled to “the pursuit of dead n*ggers.” (1/2) pic.twitter.com/yoOOkpaTX2
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) June 19, 2019
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