Amid the fallout from former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s comments about the lack of diversity of thought and heritage within the African-American community, some worry that a pattern of mistakes could affect support within the black community. .
Biden received criticism Thursday when he compared the diversity of the African American and Latino communities in a virtual chat recorded with the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
“What everyone knows, but most people don’t. Unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” Biden said. “When you go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than when you are in Arizona. So it is a very different community, very diverse.”
Just hours after the recorded comments, during a live discussion with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Biden reiterated similar comments: “We can build a new administration that reflects the total diversity of our nation, the total diversity of the Latino communities. And when I mean total diversity, unlike the African American community and many other communities, you are from everywhere. From Europe, from the tip of South America, to our border, Mexico and the Caribbean. ”
New York City Public Defender Jumaane Williams said it is important to recognize that African Americans, including those with roots in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America and the southern United States, have cultures that should be celebrated.
“To diminish those cultures and the richness of those cultures is tremendously ignorant and insulting on many levels,” said Williams, who is the son of immigrants from Granada. “But I wish I was surprised.”
After receiving backlash for his comments, Biden later took to Twitter to apologize for the comments.
“In no way did I mean to suggest that the African-American community is a monolith, not by identity, not by issue at all,” Biden wrote. “Throughout my career, I have witnessed the diversity of thoughts, backgrounds and feelings within the African American community. It is this diversity that makes our workplaces, communities and our country a better place.”
Biden was enraged in May after comments he made during an interview on “The Breakfast Club” radio show, in which he joked that if African American voters support Trump over him in November, “they are not black.”
Some argue that these comments could have an impact on the turnout of voters who are not enthusiastic about Biden’s candidacy.
“It is an elimination of black immigrants, it is a combination of the experience of blacks, it is ignorant,” said Nadia Brown, professor of political science at Purdue University and author of “Sisters in the House of Representatives: Black Women and Take of Legislative Decisions “. “Biden isn’t doing himself any favors and the people who are captive Democratic voters, who have no choice but to vote for the Democrat or stay home, are not enthusiastic about him.”
Nneka Apachu, founder of AfriPAC, a non-partisan political group that aims to improve policies that affect African immigrants in the US, said the stakes are high to worry about Biden’s mistakes, noting the bans Trump’s trip from some African countries and the attempted repeal of the Deferred Action Program for Childhood Arrivals.
“I can’t imagine another four years of this, I can hear a million mistakes,” Apachu said. “But the suffering that I am seeing right now with my people, it is not worth [jeopardizing a Biden win]. ”
There are 2.3 million eligible black immigrant voters in the United States, about 10% of immigrants eligible to vote, according to Pew Research. Black immigrants vote at roughly the same rate as American-born blacks. Black voters in general, both immigrant and American-born, overwhelmingly identify with the Democratic Party. Only 7% of black voters report that they are Republican or lean the Republican Party, compared to 87% who say they identify with or lean the Democratic Party, according to a 2016 Pew Research study.
Among those who criticized Biden’s language was Trump, who has focused on wooing African-American voters with his “Black Voices for Trump” initiative. The president said in a tweet that Biden was “no longer worthy of the black vote,” although Trump has often been criticized for his racist comments, including a recent reference to a Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower as a “symbol. of hate”.
Williams, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries but said he will vote for Biden in November, believes that Biden’s comments illustrate an insensitivity toward blacks.
“He’s just who he is. Obviously, he’s better than Donald Trump,” Williams said. “But we didn’t have to settle for that.”
Still, he urges the voters on the fence to support Biden.
“Those people shouldn’t stay home. Those people should go out,” he said.
There are several black members of Congress, all Democrats, who are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Most did not respond to ABC News requests for comment on Biden’s remarks. The staff of Rep. GK Butterfield, DN.C., whose father was from Bermuda, declined to comment on Biden’s remarks.
Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat whose mother is from Trinidad and Tobago, endorsed Biden’s presidential bid in February. He believes that Biden’s comments were misinterpreted.
“Vice President Biden’s comments were taken out of context, in no way was he suggesting that all African Americans are the same, not because of our identities or because of the issues that concern us most,” Horsford said in a written statement to ABC News. “One of the main reasons I was an early supporter of his campaign is his extensive work on these issues while in office, in which he championed diversity of thought, celebrated different backgrounds, and has always maintained a sincere relationship. with the black community. ”
Biden’s campaign co-chairman Representative Cedric Richmond told ABC News that Biden apologized to make sure people know that he understands why people call his language “problematic.”
“He’s the first to admit that he doesn’t always articulate exactly what he wants to say the way he says it,” Richmond said. “So what real leadership is is you recognize when something goes wrong, you correct it and I think it did it right away.”
.
