September 18, 2019
Page 9
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O PINION
Presidential Election 2.0 is Not Good Enough
It’s déjà vu all
over again
o scar h. b layton
The defeat of the
Democratic presiden-
tial candidate in 2016
was crushing, and many
reasons have been given for why
Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White
House went down in flames. Some
people blame her failure to visit
key states often enough. Others
blame a lack of enthusiasm on the
part of African American voters.
And then there were the Russians,
among many other things.
But four year after their humil-
iating defeat, many Democrats
seem to be leaning towards agree-
ing that what they did in 2016 is
good enough for 2020.
Enter Joe Biden, stage right,
with a broad toothy grin and
promises of moderation and elect-
ability.
The reaction of many African
Americans to Joe Biden’s appear-
ance on the political horizon is
a huge yawn of boredom. What
many white politicians and poli-
cymakers in the Democratic Par-
ty do not realize is that African
Americans understand that Don-
ald Trump is not the sole problem
we face today. He is merely the
symptom, not the disease. And the
disease has festered for centuries,
mutating from one epoch to anoth-
er – through slavery, Reconstruc-
tion, the civil rights movement,
down to today. It is not enough to
just beat Trump.
Conservative and moderate
Democrats stuck their heads in
the sand after November 2016
and ignored the white supremacy
dynamics that were in play during
the election. They resolutely pro-
claimed that Trump rode into of-
fice on economic anxieties. Black
folk have much more economic
anxiety than whites but we did not
vote for Trump. Trump rode into
office on anxieties over the loss of
white supremacy.
In 2008, what voters of color
saw in Barack Obama was a step
towards social justice and racial
equality. What they saw in Hillary
Clinton in 2016 was a privileged
white woman who had once equat-
ed youth of color with animals and
called them “superpredators.”
Now Democrats are asking
for a “do over” in 2020, serving
up a moderate-to-conservative
Democrat trailing a foul-smelling
political history that we ignore at
our own peril. If we unpack Joe
Biden’s political history, we find
the following:
School Busing – In 1974, as a
by
junior U.S. senator from Delaware,
Biden promised his white constitu-
ents that he would oppose
desegregating schools by
busing students. In the
1970s, it was clear that
many school districts were
segregated along racial
lines because housing pat-
terns were likewise segregated, and
busing students was the most log-
ical solution to achieve school in-
tegration. Biden did not care about
the social injustice of segregated
schools. He only wanted to satis-
fy his racially bigoted white con-
stituents. Because of politicians
like him, school districts today are
more segregated than they were
in the 1970s. This is an argument
backed by data. The National Cen-
ter for Education Statistics’ data
show that the percentage of African
American students attending ma-
jority white schools is down to 23
percent from a high of 44 percent
in the 1980s. The current situation
is equivalent to the integration lev-
el in 1969.
The Hyde Amendment – The
original Hyde Amendment, passed
in 1976, barred the use of federal
funds to pay for an abortion except
to save the life of the woman or if
the pregnancy arose from incest or
rape. Biden voted for its adoption
and has staunchly supported that
law until recently, when he began
his current presidential campaign.
He insists that his decision to flip
on this issue was not due to poli-
tics, but he has expressed no other
reason that makes sense.
Anita Hill – When Clarence
Thomas was nominated to the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1991, Biden
was the chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee. His aggres-
sive questioning of Anita Hill, an
African American law professor
who accused Clarence Thomas
of sexual harassment, appeared
to many Americans to be inap-
propriate and hostile. Hill told the
Huffington Post Live that Biden
did a disservice to the American
public when he refused to call oth-
er witnesses who could have cor-
roborated Hill’s characterization
of Thomas’ behavior as sexually
inappropriate. And she asserted
that this failure got in the way of
bringing to the public a better un-
derstanding of sexual harassment.
It took Biden almost 18 years to
offer an apology to Anita Hill af-
ter acknowledging that his actions
during the Thomas hearings were
“wrong.” But this 2019 apology
was so weak and disingenuous;
Anita Hill refused to accept it.
The 1994 Crime Bill – Biden
does not deny that he was the ar-
chitect of the 1994 Crime Bill. But
what he does deny, in the face of
facts to the contrary, is that it led
to mass incarceration in America.
And the weight of that outcome was
borne mostly by people of color. At-
tempting to execute a complicated
two-step shuffle, Biden denies that
the bill led to mass incarceration
while at the same time trying to
distance himself from responsibili-
ty for the impact of the bill. But his
maneuvers have been met by sharp
criticism from several other Demo-
cratic presidential candidates who
believe he should accept responsi-
bility for fostering such bad policy.
The road to Donald Trump was
paved with politicians like Biden,
their big grins and folksy sayings
masking an indifference to the
suffering of people of color. You
can find them at every level of
government, professing not to be
racist, but tolerating racism in lo-
cal, state and federal policies. Pol-
iticians like these ask us to forget
and forgive while they provide us
with nothing but empty promis-
es and disappointment. But there
must be some accountability for
politicians like Biden because,
while he is not the first of his kind,
unless people of conscious act, he
will not be the last.
One way to bar the doors to
elected office against politicians
who shrug off their past trespasses
and look to escape responsibility
for causing human suffering is to
borrow the three strikes rule from
Biden’s 1994 Crime Bill.
According to the Department of
Justice’s Criminal Resource Man-
ual, the three strikes law was creat-
ed to take violent criminals off the
streets by giving them enhanced
punishments. Since Biden wrote a
bill that supported the idea that a
three strikes rule would bring an
end to bad behavior, perhaps that
concept should be applied to him.
Opposition to school busing –
strike one. The Hyde Amendment –
strike two. Anita Hill’s treatment –
strike three. And for good measure:
The 1994 Crime Bill – strike four.
Joe, you’re out, go home.
Oscar H. Blayton is a former
Marine Corps combat pilot and
human rights activist who practic-
es law in Virginia.
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