Joe Biden is not an option. His answers about slavery were just nonsensical and actually deeply unnerving. (See video, below.)
From his response at the September 12, 2019 debate, it sounds like he never before considered the core issue of reparations. That is bizarre to me. The issue is like a sword hanging over this country. We live in a country built and made rich by genocide and slavery. Now we have to make a decision about how to fundamentally oppose those two things without giving away every penny of what we earned from them and dismantling the entire nation.
There is NO realistic way to pay for 400 years of colonial chattel slavery that destroyed and removed millions of lives while adding trillions of dollars of free labor to a system that succeeded wildly because of it. The labor alone can’t be paid for. And then, how do you reimburse people for the sheer cruelty of it, the maiming, the rape, the culling of people through torment, the killing and hobbling people in front of their families, all of it?
How do you honestly say you are sorry for something without changing behavior and giving up all the benefits you accrued due to that behavior? And to whom do we pay reparations? The widespread rape of slaves created conditions where there are no clear lines of descent.
I have my ideas as do a lot of people. To stand on a stage as a candidate and honestly look like you’ve never thought about it, though, is inane.
There are even introductory answers to this question that everyone can probably agree to, For example, one of the things we should be doing now is to divest completely and prohibit absolutely any goods that were made with slave labor anywhere in the world. Even if it means taking a hard look at companies like Apple. there is low hanging fruit here, while we figure out the big questions. We can do the small things.
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Related Videos
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Debate moment – Answer to slavery legacy is record player
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Transcript provided by YouTube
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MUST-WATCH Reaction To Joe Biden’s Slavery Comments
Cenk Uygur interviews Nina Turner after the Houston Democratic Debate on The Young Turks. Cenk and Nina discuss VP Joe Biden’s comments about racism.
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Transcript provided by YouTube
00:06
forty years ago and they clarified that
00:08
it was 40 years ago but he they asked
00:11
him about how he said I don’t really
00:12
care what happened 300 years ago and and
00:15
let’s be honest he said it was in
00:18
reference to what happened to
00:19
african-americans 300 years ago now
00:21
instead of correcting that record or
00:23
saying that he regrets those comments he
00:25
started talking about how we got to play
00:28
record players to kids what a geologist
00:31
and poor parents need to be basically
00:34
what I heard poor parents need need to
00:36
do a better job of raising their
00:37
children as if just being poor makes you
00:40
not a good parent I was highly offended
00:42
by that as a black woman I’m trying to
00:44
keep cool calm and collected that the
00:46
Vice President couldn’t say that the
00:48
slavery slavery Jim Crow redline and
00:52
bigotry institutional racism and all to
00:55
hell that black people have called since
00:56
our ancestors were brought to this
00:58
country as slaves on ships
01:00
it’s a scourge on this country and I
01:03
apologize for what I said forty years
01:06
ago but no instead he just went down
01:08
this path that made it even worse dang
01:10
and it’s just an insensitivity and not
01:12
only that right here on the campus of a
01:14
historically black college he said those
01:17
things about African American we are the
01:20
only group that Democrats like that can
01:22
just I’m trying not to curse here who
01:25
can just take advantage of us and said
01:26
say any old thing about us our history
01:29
and the legacy of that slavery and it’s
01:32
not just that leg is what’s happened in
01:33
African Americans right now there’s a
01:35
study out that says it will take 228
01:37
years for the average black family to
01:40
catch up to the wealth of the average
01:42
white family if we stay on this course
01:44
if nothing changes what that means is
01:47
that it’s never going to happen
01:49
that black people are being resigned to
01:52
a future that says that we are never
01:54
going to have wealth in this country and
01:56
that it doesn’t matter if your parents
01:57
have a college degree or whether or not
01:59
your parents are wealthy or not if you
02:01
are black in this country
02:05
that wealth that was made on the blood
02:09
sweat the backs of chattel slavery in
02:11
this country can never be undone and you
02:13
got a vice president that was totally
02:15
just just totally numb to that I mean he
02:18
just didn’t care I don’t know I don’t
02:20
even know what the answer you gave that
02:21
one got to me a lot you know as a part
02:24
just as a black woman this has nothing
02:26
to do with my support of my senator this
02:29
is me as a black woman in America to
02:31
hear the former vice president who
02:32
served under the first black president
02:33
gives such an asinine senseless and an
02:38
insensitive answer about the legacy of
02:41
chattel slavery in this country yeah you
02:45
know I actually think Mary Ann Williams
02:46
to put it pretty well in the last debate
02:48
when she said a debt is owed and and so
02:51
when you when people like Vice President
02:54
Biden say I don’t give a damn what
02:55
happened 300 years ago well you’re also
02:57
saying I don’t care that we betrayed the
03:00
promise of 40 acres and a mule and in
03:03
the reconstruct after reconstruction
03:04
that was just pulled out for political
03:07
reasons here we are again
03:09
politics wins the day and it doesn’t
03:12
matter who you destroy to get it the
03:13
federal troops pulled out of the south
03:15
and it went back to business as usual
03:17
and nothing has really changed in a deep
03:20
way in this country since then you look
03:23
at all of maternal death rates of a
03:26
black women infant mortality rates of
03:29
black children the disproportionality of
03:31
poverty in black communities high blood
03:33
you know health outcomes you name it we
03:36
have it and so again I have the vice
03:38
president just to just find out not give
03:40
a damn about it that’s pretty much what
03:41
he said forty years ago and he doubled
03:43
down on it again today everybody should
03:45
be concerned about that and especially
03:47
the black community to allow anybody to
03:49
take us just flat-out for granted like
03:51
that not even say you know what I was
03:52
wrong about that
03:53
so senator one last question sanjiang of
03:57
this country besides spilling the land
04:00
from our indigenous sisters and brothers
04:02
generation after generation viewer a
04:05
black mother to know that you were birth
04:07
a black baby into the world and that
04:08
baby would be a slave because of your
04:11
condition generation after generation
04:13
and we even have to go that far back
04:16
and look at what’s happening highest
04:17
rates in the incarceration of black men
04:20
more black men being gunned down unarmed
04:24
like me and being gunned down by police
04:26
a system that sees black people is
04:28
somehow less human and less worthy than
04:32
anybody else and you got a president and
04:35
the first black president historically
04:37
black college say what he said tonight
04:39
it’s a damn shame so do you think that
04:43
Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for
04:45
african-americans and why I do believe
04:47
that the senator is first of all he does
04:49
understand that we have to deal with
04:52
institutional racism and bigotry in this
04:54
country he does understand first of all
04:56
he supports HR 40 which representative
04:59
Conyers was right on that that we need
05:01
to bring people together not not to
05:03
study the horrors we know what this
05:05
country did but what is the best path
05:08
forward to repair to have truth in
05:12
reconciliation the senator and I were
05:13
just talking about that just yesterday
05:14
we need truth the reconciliation in this
05:18
country but while we’re doing that you
05:21
haven’t senator Bernie Sanders somebody
05:23
who says that my Medicare for all I’m
05:26
gonna deal with making sure that we deal
05:28
with health outcomes in this country
05:30
when it comes to african-americans more
05:33
black doctors more black nurses more
05:36
black teachers investments and HBCUs
05:38
that disproportionately to the positive
05:41
graduate black students at higher race
05:43
than any other institution making sure
05:46
that the $15 an hour minimum wage which
05:48
black women to this day still make less
05:52
on the dollar than the average white man
05:54
and I would love to see what our
05:55
averages are between us and white women
05:58
but he does understand the economics
06:00
that this is both cat class and caste so
06:03
while we do in panel the best minds in
06:06
this world to deal with the scourge of
06:08
slavery red line and Jim Crow Black
06:12
Codes you name it blacks just flat out
06:14
still catching hell in this country you
06:16
still need to have a president who is
06:19
very clear about white supremacy and
06:22
bigotry and institutional racism and the
06:24
senator has said that everywhere that he
06:25
goes and he doesn’t just say
06:26
when he’s in front of black people you
06:28
know he just had a the candidates just
06:30
went before an organization to talk
06:32
about he was asked the question it was
06:34
called his faith in action he was asked
06:35
the question about what he would do it
06:37
with whites about white supremacy in
06:39
this country he said are we going to war
06:40
with white supremacy in this country
06:43
he gets it you know his father you know
06:45
came over here a Jewish man escaping the
06:48
Holocaust where senator Sanders most of
06:50
his father’s family was wiped out in the
06:52
Holocaust he understands this as a 19
06:55
year old then the very age of many of
06:58
the young people here on this campus he
06:59
was fighting against that kind of
07:01
bigotry so it is in his soul it’s
07:04
something that he didn’t just start
07:05
today or to talk about on the stage
07:07
because he’s running for president he in
07:09
many ways has been on a justice journey
07:11
in all of his life so yes he is the best
07:15
for african-americans and yes he will
07:17
deal with the scourge and the sin of
07:19
institutional racism racism in this
07:21
country the original sin of this country
07:23
the TYT Plus app is now available on iOS
07:26
and Android download to get more TYT
07:29
content at TYT dot-com / app
07:33
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