Was Vice President Joe Biden recent "chains" statement a gaffe in the classical sense? Was it a faux pas that also included the toxins of race?
In the current political season, where obfuscation of serious policy concerns is the preferred modus operandi, it is easy to conclude Biden is guilty of a gaffe. But what exactly was the gaffe?
For those who have yet to hear the looped video in context Biden said:
"He [Romney]... said in the first 100 days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains."
Was that racist?
Racism is perhaps the most elusive term in our public discourse that is used so freely. We can't define it, but we think we know it when we see it.
I must confess when I first heard Biden's remarks I felt uneasy. The second time watched it, I looked at the audience make-up, and it was a mixture of whites and blacks. Does that absolve Biden of racism?
Here is where my conservative friends would opine on cue, "Byron you wouldn't say that if a Republican made a similar statement!"
Fair enough, but here is a piece I wrote about then Governor Romney in 2006 who was criticized for making a racial comment, long before I had any idea he would run for president.
Romney stated at a press conference: "The best thing for me to do politically is stay away from the Big Dig -- just get as far away from that tar baby as I possibly can."
I didn't share the racist charge that many held for Romney back then. I was far more critical of remarks made by then Sen. Hillary Clinton earlier that year, who went to a predominately black church in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day and said, "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."
The point is simply this: Biden's animated southern drawl was creepy and needless pandering, but was not racist in my view. Context matters, and the context was Wall Street.
The chains, though a poor word choice, was an inclusive declaration for anyone who was not immune from the potential downside of Wall Street's unfettered ability to maneuver in an enhanced deregulated market.
The real debate should be the validity of Biden's remarks. Is he right about Romney and Wall Street?
The latter question will be of far more importance long after we've grown weary of debating if Biden's "chains" statement was indeed a gaffe.
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Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison: How to Dump Your Veep
No.
http://youtu.be/fLbcnTiLZlo
.Joe Biden ,spoke about what some of my culture(s) overstood as truth vs insult The only people insulted are those who do not know who they are OR refuse to remember their root , OR do not know our story vs HIS-story..OR are racists and bigots pretending to know how "Afrikans" feel?
1 Shackles will be put on a women right to make health decisions,
shackles or chains will be tightened on education, which is why the POTUS signed the bill for children. Shackles will be placed on fair wages (Lillie Ledbetter
Shackles will be placed on sexuality
Shackles will be placed on health care for seniors and vets,
Last, "The Potus has also given a hand up to immigrants . There will be a return to shackles under the party of NO!
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
f/f
Wall Street thought they had Obama bought but they were very disappointed so now they are supporting Romney because he's a sure thing.
YOU'VE dealt with "hurt"s regarding the "relationships of this region"?
Uh huh. Now, were you on the hurting side, or the hurtee side? Inquiring minds...
The changes I have seen are stark, profound and welcome. Sadly we have malleable generations now that never saw, never heard, never tasted the hate, the hurt or the healings and for pompous, self serving people who derive their power, fortune and fame from raising a specter of a time and place they were no part to as fear for those that were not even living is infuriating to folks like me.
My anger is based on this unacceptable trash being spread by the heads of a political party that set up and maintained the old status-quo of hurt and hate for over a century in The Old Dominion and elsewhere. Tell me ...what do you think your pissed at....
Hey Joe, don't let the pundits worry you, they are speaking for the anxiety of the elite. The people have your back.
I am a Black woman who cannot understand the outrage, real and manufactured about Biden's use of the word chains.
For those who were truly offended by the word, I would suggest saving that offense for true racist remarks rather than diluting the issue. By the time a true racist moment occurs, we've cried wolf so many times, we are just ignored or scolded.
For those engaging in manufactured outrage, they are not worthy of attention or response.
He was talking about the entire country put into chains by Wall St unchained
But I suspect you know that already...and, as I said earlier "For those engaging in manufactured outrage, they are not worthy of attention or response.”
Private sector jobs have been consistently on the positive, and compared to Bush's record, stunningly positive.
Back to those government jobs...Government jobs would require GROWING the government...which the GOPTP do not wish to do. They wish to get rid of most of it.
How many jobs do you think will vanish, if Mitt gets his way and the Dept of Ed is gone...EPA is gone...every dept repubs don't like...gone. Tens of thousands of jobs GONE. And then...they'll get rid of unemployment...and the food stamps...so...I dunno...what you got left? Oh...I know...you'll hire tens of thousands of PRISON GUARDS for all the facilities built for debtors and the poor and the elderly and the disabled and the...and put them to work for Nike and Walmart.