According to Democrats, black people who don’t vote for Biden “ain’t black,” in the same way that women who voted for Trump in 2016 “betrayed their gender.”
In the pages of the Washington Post Friday, writer Jonathan Capehart spent 650 words or so explaining why Biden’s viral comment from only a few hours prior was “clearly a joke.”
The remark Capehart addresses in his article, titled “Come on. Biden’s ‘you ain’t black’ comment was clearly a joke,” occurred on an episode of “The Breakfast Club,” wherein the former vice president and presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee closed out the show with the startling and cringey comment, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
“When heard in the context of the previous 17 minutes and 21 seconds, you know that Biden is joking around,” Capehart writes in Biden’s defense. “Perhaps he got a little too comfortable talking to a community with which he has a strong relationship that spans decades. Add to that being the vice president to the nation’s first black president and you know his affinity with black folks runs deep.”
Biden’s senior adviser Symone Sanders took the same line, insisting the former vice president’s comment was “in jest.”
Biden’s comment, which naturally exploded on Twitter, drew criticism from detractors who said Biden should stay locked away in his basement, away from the cameras.
