Up to this point in the interview, former Vice President Biden spoke about his campaign, institutional racism and the challenges facing the black community.
The interview showed that Biden must engage on the issues that matter to black voters, and demonstrated the importance of the black community to the Democratic Party and Biden the presidential candidate.
Efforts to lobby Biden to choose a black woman as his running mate, and the insistence he not select a white centrist in the mold of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (reportedly also being vetted) reflect a desire among many black voters to demand more from those in leadership and power in exchange for their support.
Biden’s latest incident isn’t his first, and reminds me of former President Bill Clinton, who during the 2016 campaign was campaigning for his wife Hillary in Philadelphia and found himself in a heated exchange with Black Lives Matter activists over his — and incidentally, Biden’s — 1994 crime bill.
Biden, like Clinton, presents black voters with a conflicting picture; he served under the first black president in a White House — one with a strong commitment to civil rights.
