The reference Biden made to being called "Son" was

[BootinUp]

to further characterize the Dixiecrat, it wasn’t meant as a joke, Cory, it was a fact. Biden was not shown normal respect because the member was an asshole. Understand?

[marylandblue]

1. Part of the problem is that Eastland was a Democrat.

A Democrat we'd rather forget about.

[crazytown]

4. It would be a mistake to forget the Dixiecrat past,

Jim Crow as a Democratic Party institution.

[marylandblue]

15. Yes, we should remember the past, but we can wish it never happened.

And if a candidate does bring those bad memories up, he should also say we are not that party anymore.

[JI7]

29. it's a southern institution that still exists in the south

[crazytown]

30. The Democratic Party instituted segregation,.

The Louisiana General Assembly formalized segregation 'separate but equal' in 1890. Segregationists triumphed in the Party after the defeat of popularism in the 19th Century. Wilson instituted segregation in the Federal Government. FDR's Federal Housing Administration, instituted redlining, residential segregation. Some hardcore advocates like Eastland survived the advent Civil Rights and Voting Rights. I find this attempt to whitewash the Party's racist past, disgraceful.

[JI7]

31. there is no whitewash. i know about the racism in the party and that's how FDR was able to get huge

majorities and bills passed.

but i'm talking about today. the people who make up the party today are mostly minorities and don't come from the dixiecrats.

[crazytown]

33. And the Democratic Party is the party of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act

measures of supreme political courage by representatives who knew what the cost would be. Discounting the Party's racist past devalues the integrity of these men and women who grabbed hold of the arc of history and demanded justice.

I am sorry that I misconstrued you point, but I feel strongly about this.

[JI7]

34. i understand what you were saying. my response was more to the things the right wing always tries to

do and blame the democrats today for the racists. they blame people like OBama and other minorities.

and they ignore the fact that the republican party of today embraced the dixiecrats and they now make up much of the republican party.

[crazytown]

35. The GOP accepted the white blindfolds from the Dixiecrats

and wear them with pride.

[still_one]

7. Yeah, and after the Civil Rights Act, followed in the 70's by Nixon's southern strategy, most of

those Democrats became republicans

Ironically, the party of Lincoln is now the party of bigots

[crazytown]

19. And today, the Democrats are the party of the cities.

an almost complete reversal except, the GOP is still the party of wealth.

[still_one]

22. interesting

[IronLionZion]

13. The fact that so many DUers think segregationists were Republicans is

a big symptom of the problem. It would have made way more sense if Biden worked with moderate Republicans to accomplish liberal things.

[crazytown]

21. Like Arlen Specter or Hatch

but then he runs into the Thomas hearings.

[crazytown]

2. Eastland was a Dixiecrat, not GOP nt

[BootinUp]

3. Thanks I will fix that.

[aikoaiko]

5. Booker is right about that comment.

It’s bizarre. Why would a racist call a white colleague “boy”?

[mainstreetonce]

6. Joe's point was He didn't get called boy

Because he is white.

[aikoaiko]

9. If that was his point he made it badly.

And I’m not sure why it had to be made.

[BeyondGeography]

23. Thank you

Biden authored a truly mind-numbingly stupid and pointless incident here.

[Voltaire2]

14. Well then that is what he should have said.

But then we are stuck with why repeat this story at all? Reports are that his campaign staff have asked him to drop it long before it blew up this week.

[crazytown]

8. That was the point

Eastland couldn’t call him boy - he always called him ‘son’, an insult to a fellow Senator.

[BootinUp]

11. Sorry but "boy" was to make it clear that "Son"

Was used in a derogatory fashion. Booker is Twisting the hell out of it.

[R B Garr]

16. *1, Booker has been twisting a lot.

A reporter asked Biden about Booker demanding an apology and Booker twisted Biden’s response.

[Cha]

32. Not a good sign.

[emmaverybo]

36. Exactly. Biden was not dancing around the idea that Eastland was a racist and an sob to all.

He’s talking about how the senator talked. So Booker is triggered by a mention of the form of address these hideous old Dixiecrats would use? Biden didn’t spit it out his own mouth at Booker.
Where is Joan Rivers? Can we talk?
Pretty transparent story. I mean it shouldn’t take post-modern deconstructive theory to get what it means.

[TwilightZone]

12. Words have multiple meanings and change with context.

And different words are used in different contexts with similar intent. In this case, to belittle others.

That was the point. It's not as complicated as many seem to want to make it.

[marylandblue]

20. Actually, this is way complicated.

Because 40 years later the context has changed and the story now means something totally different. Nobody under 50 really gets it and Biden doesn't know what's wrong with it even when his staff warned him about it.

[R B Garr]

17. Thanks to all the posts already describing this.

“Son” was a condescending address to a young politician.

[not_the_one]

25. and is "boy" also

just condescending? Or is it a verbal slap in the face, designed to humiliate, denigrate, belittle, dehumanize? To basically, put one in one's place...

It is especially insulting for a white man to put forth as some sort of false equivalency, of calling a white man "son", and a black man "boy".

We need the POC communities to get behind our nominee with HUGE enthusiasm. I don't think that those types of mistakes are going to bring them in.

Although he is my first choice, I have the same worry about Pete getting support from the black community due to their long time prejudice against gays. We need them, and if he can't bring them in, he won't make it.

Although Biden's heart is in the right place, he will make gaffe after gaffe, and you can bet the party of turdface will make the most out of every single one, while we democrats tsk tsk and clutch our pearls. We will re-live the Anita Hill hearings from start to finish in the repturds turdface campaign aids.

Biden is the last ditch effort of, dare I call them the verboten moniker, the "democratic establishment", to keep power out of the hands of those pesky upstart freshmen/women who want real change, and a return to our basic democratic tenets. Which means an end to the past, and the start of (hell, the saving of) the future. Biden is seen by many as not change, but more of the same.

And that "democratic establishment" are the very ones who have snatched defeat out of the mouths of victory, time after time. Obama was an exception, but he/they allowed mcturtle to state from day one that he would NOT COOPERATE AT ALL, bent on stopping every thing Obama did. And for the most part, were successful. We started losing congress in a big way. We could have been so much further along... Yet we kept our powder dry.

Now turdface is undoing everything Obama did.

We are too timid, weak, to worried about what the repturds will do in response. Hell, back when we had the presidency, the house and the senate, we blew it. Right now we are playing chicken with the house hearings, allowing the repturds to spit in our face, "patiently" setting up some 3D chess plan to take turdface down, as the clock is ticking....

If the party leaders want to maintain their role as leadership, they better fucking start leading.

Yes, this is an important election. turdface must be beat, at all costs.

But if our selection as nominee doesn't capture enough votes to make the win so obvious russia can't possibly manipulate it, it is the end of the democratic party, and this country.

We better pick someone who isn't just considered "safe", but someone who can also pull in the young, in great numbers, and the disaffected, who still think (based on their past experiences) there is no real difference between the two choices.

I will gladly vote for Biden if he is the nominee, but he is far from my first choice. And I don't think he is what we need, at this crucial crossroad.

[mr_lebowski]

26. Tell it, brotha!

Well said ... though turdface isn't my favorite moniker

And I'm not really sure of a time when the Dem Establishment snatched victory away in recent memory. Bernie wasn't beating Trump. Al Gore had no serious more-liberal challenger that I recall, AND HE FUCKING WON. Obama and Clinton were the People's choice, not establishment candidates.

Maybe in some House/Senate elections but not really for POTUS, can't agree on that.

Most of the rest ... I'm mostly with ya ... welcome to DU

[R B Garr]

38. It wasn't an equivalence, and this kind of intentional distortion is also insulting.

No offense, but everyone under the sun knows the meaning and origins/use of the term "boy". No need to 'splain to people, because this actually looks like the intention behind the intentional distortions -- putting others and Biden in a defensive position to gain some advantage. People are on to that kind of thing.

The politicians were peers, and Biden's point was that he was treated as a subordinate and less-than-equal peer by being referred to as "son". I realize there is hay to be made by keeping the distortions going, but it's not a good look for those who want to push that angle. Bernie got really testy yesterday on MSNBC when the hosts of Velshi and Ruhle kept correcting his distorted comments about Biden. Booker was on Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night just destroying his credibility. He offered up his view on Biden's comment which was that Biden was bragging about being called an endearing term like "son." What an offensive and completely laughable interpretation and also very self-serving in order to increase his profile. It's laughably offensive that Booker thinks anyone will buy that hogwash that Biden was bragging because he thought he was considered a "son". Give me a break!


In the meantime, those that keep distorting Biden are creating their own "gaffes" as I've just briefly referenced above. What is amazing about all of this is the complete ignoring of Trump and what Biden was saying about civility. Trump is not civil. Trump calls people juvenile names. That is what Biden references in his talks -- Trump. He's not taking cheap potshots at other Democrats. The fact that none of those pushing these Biden distortions keep that in mind about Trump is very revealing about their motives. Why bother pontificating about what Trump will do to any of the candidates -- they are handing Trump all the petty smears by forming this circular firing squad. No thanks. We saw this already with what was done to Hillary. I'll stick with the opinions of leaders like Obama and Clyburn. In addition, I'll stick with the all the other politicians and media figures who have called out the distortions and lies about what Biden intended. I'm not going to listen to his rivals who are 1% in the polls or otherwise dropping like flies.

[mr_liberal]

24. I read Eastland gave money to a civil rights group in his later years. It was a newspaper clipping.

It looked real, all I could read is the headline though.

Here it is. I found it. It definitely seems real and you can read it:

Link to tweet

[mr_lebowski]

27. Joe S. pretty much nailed it. I've refused to get into this debate cuz I get tired lots of time

of the rushes to judgement and alacrity between us here.

I understood exactly WHY he picked these people in the context of what he was saying. They're the OPPOSITE of HIM, and yet he managed to work with them, ergo it's POSSIBLE to accomplish that sort of thing in Congress. Or at least it was.

That all being said, the argument that he should've explained it BETTER?!? That is not an unworthy discussion.

[Raine]

28. Interesting, I hadn't heard this before

I wish Biden had explained it better.

[ucrdem]

37. He understands. Doubtless he's heard this story many times.

I'm really disappointed in Booker.

[tonedevil]

39. If you were advising him...

would you tell him to use this story again? If you would suggest he keep telling the story would you tell him to keep or cut the son-boy construct?
I think this story is a disaster for him. It seems like he would like to be using it to justify the Republican epiphany he predicted, but it fails as a story of working across the aisle because the disgusting racists were Democrats. Further it serves as a reminder that what he was working with Senator Eastland on was getting rid of school integration busing. Finally that muddled son-boy thing is at best an illustration of white privilege at its worst.

[BootinUp]

40. It's definitely not a disaster for Biden. Nt

[tonedevil]

41. But, do you think he should keep...

telling this story with the son-boy construction?

[BootinUp]

42. I believe Biden will figure it out. I don't want him

To just repeat someone else’s words.