"When Joe Biden characterized Barack Obama to the New York Observeras “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate,” he revealed the kind of linguistic prejudice that too often passes for acceptable in white America.
Biden made this remark about his Senate colleague in an interview in which he disparaged his other rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination as having a position on Iraq that is “nothing but disaster” (Hillary Clinton) and not knowing “what the heck he’s talking about” (John Edwards). Calling Obama well-spoken as well as “bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” didn’t seem so bad in comparison.
But it was the Obama moment, not the other insults, that threatened to derail Biden’s candidacy, because it revealed an insensitivity both subtler and in some ways more pernicious than Virginia Senator George Allen’s use of macaca, an overt slur which contributed to Allen’s defeat in the last election.
Jesse Jackson was quick to remind Biden that Obama is hardly the first mainstream African American politician to be intelligent and rhetorically-accomplished, and Al Sharpton added that Obama is not even the first to bathe daily.
But Biden wasn’t just alluding to Obama’s rhetorical skill in his remarks. What he also meant was, Obama has become a media darling because he sounds white. The subtext of Biden’s message is this: “Talk white, like me, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll listen, but not till after I get over my initial shock that you can actually look black but sound white.” That’s just not a politically astute way to talk about a colleague, and it’s also not linguistically accurate."
intercept.edu
