ABC News “wonders” if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden made a racially insensitive remark about Barack Obama at a forum in Iowa:
At an event focused on minority issues–the Black & Brown forum in Des Moines, Iowa, Sen. Joe Biden D-Del., raised eyebrows when he answered a question about hate crimes. Citing the Jena 6, Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., asked Biden if he would help him strengthen the enforcement of hate crimes legislation in the Senate as he would prioritize the issue in his presidency.
Biden responded, “I would be happy to make you the head of the civil right division of my administration.”
Reporters were “a bit taken back by the comment,” recalling another comment for which Biden caught some flak in February. Well, that’s reporters for you. Obama’s challenge to Biden was entirely based on race and civil rights. Biden’s response was entirely logical. It’s the reporters’ own racism that may have been revealed by their reaction.
In a world that made any sense at all, rather than being “taken aback” by Biden’s benign comment, the reporters would have written stories about people who, in this day and age, would hold something called the Black & Brown Forum. Only if Black & Brown were a law firm sponsoring the event would that name be appropriate.
