What, it's gotten so a white person can't praise a black person's personal hygeine without people taking it as a veiled insult?
Sure, he's black, but he doesn't smell black. Probably because of his white mother.
I always picture MLK as being a little sweaty. But in all fairness, air conditioning wasn't as widespread back then.
Still, this "articulate" thing is ridiculous. Is Biden thinking of some black high school student with a chip on his shoulder who mumbles and won't make eye contact with a white guy in a position of authority? If I were to venture a stereotype of black public figures, I would say that they tend to be more articulate, and better public speakers in general, than white public figures.
I don't even know what you say to that. Clean?!? Clean?!?
You don't think he's clean, Cala? Why, because he's a Muslim?
Did you see that apostropher posted about this same quote?
This isn't the first time Biden has trafficked in offensive racial stereotypes. The thing that really bowls me over is that this time, there's absolutely no good interpretation. He definitely insulted Jesse Jackson or John Conyers, or possibly every black person in America.
Did you see that apostropher posted about this same quote?
I deny it.
8: Did you see Kotsko post that question in the other thread?
I do think people sweat "articulate" too much. Obama is a much smoother speaker than any of the other candidates--sometimes people reach for a word and it has problematic aspects that were not considered. A poor choice of words, but let's not go nuts. Hammer him for an obvious gaffe, of the sort that Kerry would make. That I get.
What's he trying to say about Shirley Chisholm, eh?
Shirley Chisholm wasn't a nice-looking guy.
If Obama's media people are smart, I think they defend Biden on "gimme a break--that's not what he meant" grounds. I think that makes Obama more palatable too some people.
And they put out a statement saying that Obama think that Biden smells nice, too.
And they put out a statement saying that Obama think that Biden smells nice, too.
That, especially.
It's about time someone pointed out that most Negroes are stupid and ugly. I'm tired of this PC requirement that we pretend that Michael Jordan is attractive and that Toni Morrison is a better writer than Michael Crichton.
If Obama's media people are smart, I think they defend Biden on "gimme a break--that's not what he meant" grounds.
I don't think so; Obama has issues with perceptions of how black he "really" is, and if he did that, I think blacks would be much more likely to think that he'll sell them out.
And that Barbara Jordan--jesus, a cripple, even. So unfuckable.
I'll happily fuck the crippled blacks that B rejects. Why? Because I'm a good liberal.
Look. Biden was merely saying what Neil Kinnock said last year. What's the problem here?
I'd take the sardonic approach if I were Obama's campaign:
"Senator Biden also has excellent hygiene--though clearly he's less articulate than Senator Obama."
"Bright and clean." Apparently the plight of the American Negro is that people just haven't been sufficiently buffëd.
I don't think so; Obama has issues with perceptions of how black he "really" is, and if he did that, I think blacks would be much more likely to think that he'll sell them out.
That's crap put out by HRC's people. Go back and read what black Democrats said about Colin Powell and his potential run. He had the same possible problems.
24: Except Barbara Jordan, who appears to have been downright shiny.
I wonder who Biden thinks is the first mainstream African-American who was NOT (articulate AND bright AND clean AND a nice-looking guy).
... the lost episode of Cop Rock: DeMorgan's Law.
I always picture MLK as being a little sweaty. But in all fairness, air conditioning wasn't as widespread back then.
Also, he was constantly aware that people wanted to shoot him.
There is something iconic, though, about the image of an early civil rights leader in a nice suit in the Alabama heat, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.
I wonder which non-mainstream African-Americans Biden thinks of as clean, articulate, bright, and nice-looking? Could be an untapped resource, there.
Also, he was constantly aware that people wanted to shoot him.
Made me giggle.
25: It is?
Yeah, King was always wearing those dark suits, in the South, in the summer. Yowsers. Obama benefits from more breathable fabrics.
non-mainstream African-Americans Biden thinks of as clean, articulate, bright, and nice-looking?
I suggest Minister Farrakhan.
29 - Rick James. Look how much product that man used!
Clearly Biden left the word "candidate" out of what he was saying -- he's contrasting Obama with Sharpton and the non-mainstream Chisolm. Where this leaves the famously inarticulate Jesse Jackson is anyone's guess. But between this and his convenience store gag and bragging about Delaware's status as a slave state, can we just ask Joe to go home and pontificate about the war? Christ.
That Kinnock reference brings back memories of being in a law office in the summer of '87, watching the over-covered antics of "the seven dwarfs," as they were then called, of whom Biden was the most ridiculous, and regaling my secretary with witticisms about them—no internet to suck a lawyer's time and relieve his boredom and anxiety then.
I do think people sweat "articulate" too much.
I'm usually with you on this, but there's a difference between "Barry-O is articulate" and "Barry-O is the first articulate mainstream a-a". The latter is wrong, inapropriate, and insulting.
33: Failing to remember Barbara Jordan should be a firing offense for any Democratic politician.
A couple of defenses of Biden are here. It's all about the comma!
One of the biggest problems in America today is that people just won't bother to give white folks the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, if you read the comma so that Biden is just introducing new information about Obama, there's no end of the original clause. BO-- hey, wait, I thought he was clean-- is the first AA to....what?
39: It gets past the implied insult to all other African American candidates, but still leaves him complimenting Obama on his personal hygeine. If you look down the TPM page Ogged linked, Marshall describes Biden as suffering from "racial grandpaism" -- the way old people say stuff that you know doesn't mean they're bad people, they just grew up at a time when they were immersed in casual racism.
Not that Biden's quite old enough to qualify, but I think that describes him pretty well.
(Maybe 'clean' was going for 'clean-cut'? I could see that as a not-batshit-insane description of Obama's general vibe.)
A lot of people are going to reach, and far, in order not to acknowledge the gist of Biden's comment. At saiselgy's site people are claiming that by "clean" Biden meant "not corrupt."
I see that's been noted on the other thread.
Probably he meant to say: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American. [But] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy? I! Man, that's a storybook, man."
I'm sure he was talking about the clean lines of Obama's angular frame.
The thing is, I do think a charitable interpretation of 'clean' is probably right. I still want Biden to go away now, but I don't believe that he actually thinks that African Americans in public life are literally dirty.
41: That's what I meant. Even if you accept the comma explanation, and wave away FL's good point about where the rest of the clause went, you still have a Senator praising an opponent who is presumably a grown man on being clean (and making it as 'not corrupt' doesn't really help.) as if it's something remarkable.
Actually praising a member of congress for being not corrupt is a pretty big compliment these days, although the House is worse than the Senate.
I don't know why we give old people a pass on their racism. We certainly thought their racist actions when they were younger were wrong.
I think by "clean" Biden meant Obama's meticulously waxed chest.
46: I do think a charitable interpretation of 'clean' is probably right.
Trouble is, there is no charitable interpretation of "clean." Pretty much all possible variations in this context are insulting.
Except for 45. I guess what he should have said is, "You've got a mainstream cat who's really Bauhaus."
Well, 'not actually meant to refer to Obama's personal hygeine' brings it back to standard gaffe Biden should go away forever for, and says bad things about him. If he was really talking about Obama's comparative literal cleanliness, then there's something wrong with him to the point where he should be evaluated for possible stroke damage.
Charity is comparative.
Oh come on. Everyone knows that Oprah Winfrey's in with the mob.
I don't know why we give old people a pass on their racism. We certainly thought their racist actions when they were younger were wrong.
Not so much on their racism, as on their language. Think about the 'articulate' thing. In, say, 1960, a white guy praising an African American speaker for his articulateness put you on the side of the angels compared to the perfectly mainstream position that African Americans were all stupid. Now (and for the last several decades) it sounds horribly condescending. But the 'racial grandpa' may mean perfectly well, just not have updated his sense of what's appropriate in the last fifty years.
I'm usually with you on this, but there's a difference between "Barry-O is articulate" and "Barry-O is the first articulate mainstream a-a". The latter is wrong, inapropriate, and insulting.
Obama should still defuse this thing. Not-African-American people are often careful about language around African-Americans because they don't want to say something that might give rise to an inference that they're racists. I don't doubt that this leads to some people being less comfortable around black people, even if only marginally. I could see that being a problem for Obama's candidacy; this situation gives him an opportunity to address it.
"Gaffe" is exactly the right word: this is a reference to something real, in the mass white judgment to which Biden is referring, and in fact we all know and feel it. But at the same time, it can't be said, at least not this clumsily. Rhetorical incompetence ought to be fatal in a politician, and has always been among Biden's faults. If you'd asked me 20 years ago, when he lasted tested presidential waters, what the chances we'd be talking about Biden's presidentiality in 2007, I'd have guessed zero.
55: Also, it's bad enough that Obama doesn't need to be publicly indignant to get Biden punished. (I hope.) I think you're right that Obama's best political response is to be gracious.
(Not that I think he has any obligation to be. "Fuck you, cracker" would be morally acceptable, just not politically wise.)
My immediate thought was like LB's: "clean" surely refers to clean-cut image, not personal hygiene. I almost posted that way back around comment 1, but then I thought about it some more and, like DS, I don't think that actually gets you anywhere. Slightly less bizarre, perhaps, but no less insulting.
Maybe he can backhand-slap Biden on the Senate floor and yell loudly "I pity the fool who condescends to Barry-O because of his race!!"
Speaking of Presidential candidates' gaffes, the French socialist party's nominee seems not to be doing herself or her party any favors. After the story I linked to came out, she accidentally supported the secession of Corsica. No kidding. This is very disappointing because Sarko is a total asshole.
Yeah, I think 58 is right. The charitable interpretation doesn't leave Biden much better off, it just moves him from insane to ordinary racist.
48: So what do you recommend I do, Rob? Shun my 80-year-old blind father and make his already sad life even sadder because he occasionally uses the N-word?
The reason we give old people a pass on their racism is that there's no fucking point in making an issue of it. You're not going to change their minds, it wouldn't do anyone a damn bit of good if you did, and they'll be dead soon anyway.
Let me just add that if Obama did as I (wisely) recommend in 59, he would have 90% of the vote of my generation.
Visiting one's racist relatives isn't the same as "giving a pass to old people" generally.
That said, if my racist relatives didn't know to watch what they say when PK's around, I'd make a big issue of it. Same as I'd do if my dad didn't know to hide his homophobia around his long-haired grandson.
Mom, I look totally gay in this haircut.
Yeah, by "not give a pass" I really just meant be willing to call them on stuff, not "shun them and let them rot alone in pee stained underwear"
That said, I have never picked an argument with my grandparents about anything.
Spackerman points to this cryptic website.
Eh, I'm feeling like the apologist for elderly racists here, and I'm no longer talking about Biden at all, who really doesn't deserve the exemption. But at least sometimes, older people are really less racist than younger people when saying the same racist-sounding stuff.
There's language about African Americans that was polite and compatible with racially progressive views (NAACP?) back in the day, that would mark someone using it now as racist. Someone who built their habits a long time ago has a fair shot of sounding bad even when they really don't mean anything wrong.
(Heck, when I was in high school (eighties) I had no idea 'Oriental' was offensive -- I didn't know anyone who used 'Asian' to describe people of East Asian origin. I picked up the new usage when I heard it, starting around the end of high school, but had to browbeat my parents into it in the mid-nineties, because listening to them was making me cringe. But having missed that change in usage didn't make them racist.)
Take out the reference to Obama's race, and I think I almost share the first part of Biden's sentiment -- as in, "Wow, here's a candidate that's articulate, bright, clean (and I'm going with the unsoiled by corruption interpretation), and good looking." I can't recall the last time we had a presidential candidate -- of any race -- who was articulate, bright, *and* free of the taint of corruption (or rumors thereof). That he's kinda pretty too is just an added bonus.
"What Senator Biden meant is exactly what he said to Diane Sawyer," said Biden campaign spokesman Larry Rasky. "He's fresh and he's new and he's got great ideas."
I'm happy to believe that Biden was merely stoned and not malicious, but, really. How many gaffes can a man pack into one remark?
That he's kinda pretty too is just an added bonus.
That is just wrong: he's jug-eared, and his lips are blue.
68 is true; but it's also equally true that, say, young people can use loaded terms ("articulate") without realizing the racist history of the thing.
I would say, though, that using the word "Oriental" (to take your example) was, surely, an expression of *some* level of racism on your folks' part, inasmuch as it was an expression of a broader cultural racism, no? There's clearly a point at which we decide not to press points like that, especially with people we are fond of and who we rightly have enough respect for not to pick an argument, as Rob says. I think that's a good thing. But I'm not sure it actually means that the things we think aren't worth making a fuss over aren't objectionable, strictly speaking.
70: Nah, what Biden really meant to say is that Obama's fresh.
Biden has forgotten the First Law of Holes.
I would say, though, that using the word "Oriental" (to take your example) was, surely, an expression of *some* level of racism on your folks' part, inasmuch as it was an expression of a broader cultural racism, no?
I would completely disagree with this, and posit that if somebody does not personally know any East Asian people, and does not pay attention to racial political issues, there's no way for them to even suspect that "Oriental" is an unacceptable word.
Of course not. That's where my "expression of broader cultural racism" clause would come in. Inasmuch as, although there are tons and tons of Asian Americans, American society is still fairly segregated; and that political issues and language of race are a fairly specialized topic that doesn't get a lot of major media play; and that "Oriental," as a word, was invented to clump together some quite disparate kinds of aesthetic style, ethnic and national identities, and so on precisely *because*, at the time, we didn't see any reason to differentiate them.
"Oriental" is generally acceptable in Hawaii. I had a hard time talking my wife, who are one, into the idea that she ought not use that word around law school classmates, etc., on the mainland. It's not the word itself that's the problem, it's that any word used to mean "those people" will take on negative connotations over time and eventually have to be replaced by right-thinking people with a new term that isn't associated with the negative stereotyping and treatment.
75: Agree with CN. If you want to say something like "it reinscribes existing racist norms, however unintentionally," I might buy that. Certainly not much more, and maybe less.
But that moves it back to "this usage is evidence that you live or lived in a racist society" rather than "this usage is evidence of your racial beliefs as an individual". Societal racism is important in terms of fixing things, but only individual beliefs are important in terms of handing out opprobrium.
(This is not to say people using racist terminology shouldn't be corrected, or even berated about it (that's what I did!) where it's going to be effective. Just that it's not always going to be a blameworthy error.)
79: Fair enough, and I don't want to push us into another go-round of where we draw the line between intentional racism and unintentional expressions of social racism. Agreed that opprobium isn't called for in the latter.
My dad's comfort w/ blacks was a great gift to me, unusual in a Canadian(he came from a town w/ a substantial black pop. from underground railway days) and he was pretty good about keeping his language up-to-date. But we would now call racism was endemic, even among by-and-large well-meaning people, a generation ago. I grew up surrounded by those lantern-holding lawn ornaments—not my house, but still.
78's what I meant, and I like 77 as an explanation of why language changes, and shall therefore steal it next time someone asks why "colored" is bad but "people of color" isn't.
it's that any word used to mean "those people" will take on negative connotations over time and eventually have to be replaced by right-thinking people with a new term that isn't associated with the negative stereotyping and treatment
And the sense that this is tedious comes from the idea that this is a never ending process, that today's newly-minted polite word will be tomorrow's epithet. What's hard to say is how much truth there is to this perception. It seems clearly true wrt "retarded" and "negro" itself.
The process might end if the negative stereotyping and treatment ended.
Ignoring the fact that it posits the speaker is west of Asia (and the history, of course), I'm not sure what about "Oriental" is more racist than "Asian" in 76. In fact, given that "Asian American" is not typically used to describe Americans of, say, Lebanese or Pakistani descent, I'd say that "Oriental" might describe fewer "disparate kinds of aesthetic style, ethnic and national identities". That said, there's a lot of cultural freight to haul there, and when terms fall into disfavor among their referent groups, disfavoring them is the right thing to do. But I can totally understand how Notional Grandpa would keep saying that.
Hey, what's this?
"[Obama] hasn't gotten elected yet. He hasn't even gotten the party's nomination. He's an attractive guy. He's articulate," Bush said in an interview with Fox News.
How about "from the inscrutable East"? (Last heard by a White Sox announcer describing Chien Ming Wong)
You know what needs to make a comeback? "Celestial." Most unintentionally complimentary racial epithet ever.
86: If you're ignoring the history, you're missing the point.
90: Well, exactly. In the absence of history, the meaning of the word is limited to its denotation, and what the word is wouldn't matter at all.
Regarding "clean", I am under the impression that it is a common code word for "white" (as in a real estate ad looking for a "clean tenant"). Am I wrong?
88: Seriously? Wait 'til they get a load of Matsuzaka.
92: New to me, but doesn't sound inherently implausible.
Here is the audio:
http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=463858485
Also note that jesse kicked joe biden's ass in the 1988 deomocratic primary.
o Michael Dukakis 2687
o Jesse Jackson 1218
o Joseph Biden 2
o Richard Gephardt 2
o Gary Hart 1
o Lloyd Bentsen 1
"What's he trying to say about Shirley Chisholm, eh?"
That she's not one of "the other Democrats who are [currently] running for President," the subject he was speaking about. Context matters.
89: Could you expand on this? I'm really racking my brain and coming up with bupkis. Last I knew, extraterrestrials didn't merit a concise cutting slur.
Used to mean 'Chinese', didn't it? From some translation (whether or not an actual one) of China as 'the Celestial Kingdom', IIRC.
86 - Well, sure, but we're talking about why Notional Grandpa uses the term. (Or why LB's less notional folks did.) There's nothing about it that would trigger alarms for people of good will who had grown up using the term, since at the time it was descriptive rather than perjorative.
89 - It's a slur on Swedenborg, or possibly JM. (No, it's a 19th century term for Chinese people, as seen in Deadwood.)
That's what I thought, too, LB, but it seems to arise from one of the titles for the emperor.
no one would call them inarticulate
This, obviously. Sen. Biden must have thought them untidy.
"no one would call [Jesse Jackson] inarticulate"
33, j'accuse!
You set sarcasm.blink = false in your Firefox preferences.
My mistake--I thought you might have been referring to a real incident I wasn't aware of.
Swedenborg controversial? Who knew? Someone call Kotsko.
Mormons, yeah, controversial.
With that underwear, and the ancestors, and so on.
67: oh man, I hope that blog keeps going (as long as Biden does, I s'pose).
