Biden in 1975.
Joe Biden, a son of the Rust Belt who is running for US president, was Barack Obama’s vice president, from 2009 to 2017. But before that he was a senator from the state of Delaware, from 1973 to 2009:
- In the 1970s, back in the Age of Civility, he led the White Liberal backlash against busing in the Senate.
- In the 1990s he championed the crime bill that helped give us the mass incarceration of Black men, the New Jim Crow.
This post is about the first one.
In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled, in Brown v Board, that separate or segregated schools for Blacks and Whites meant worse schools for Blacks – that separate meant unequal. Which is unconstitutional: the 14th amendment promises equal protection under the law regardless of race.
Busing: by making students take a bus to school, a city, town or county could send students to different schools to achieve a good mix of races. Because of racism in housing, busing was often the only way to desegregate schools.
In 1972 Joe Biden ran for Senate. He supported busing, like most White Liberals, and won.
In 1974 busing led to riots in Boston. It made news from coast to coast. That same year the courts ordered busing for Wilmington too, the biggest city in Biden’s home state.
Senator Ed Brooke of Massachusetts, the state where the Boston busing riots took place, said of busing:
“It’s not popular – certainly among my constituents. I know that. But, you know, I’ve always believed that those of us who serve in public life have a responsibility to inform and provide leadership for our constituents.”
So long as Jesse Helms, an infamous racist White Southern senator, was the face of anti-busing in the Senate, White Liberals were able to vote him down, however narrowly.
In 1975 Biden broke ranks. He joined Helms in opposing busing. Biden proposed an amendment to the education bill that said that money from Washington could not be used:
“to assign teachers or students to schools … for reasons of race.”
Biden:
“All the amendment says is that some bureaucrat sitting down there in HEW [the Department of Health, Education & Welfare] cannot tell a school district whether it is properly segregated or desegregated, or whether it should or should not have funds.”
Biden on busing:
- Busing was “an asinine policy.”
- Busing was racist: Making Blacks go to White schools “implies that blacks have no reason to be proud of their inheritance and their own.”
- Busing stunted intellectual growth:
“The real problem with busing is that you take people who aren’t racist, people who are good citizens, who believe in equal education and opportunity, and you stunt their children’s intellectual growth by busing them to an inferior school.”
Black people – if they are even “people” – be damned.
Besides, racial segregation, at least in the North, was not the government’s fault.
Biden turned the tide. He gave enough White Liberals moral cover to join him in voting down busing in the Senate.
In 1978 Biden won re-election, Brooke lost.
a Boston busing protest in 1976.
– Abagond, 2019.
Sources: Mainly Politico (2015) and Jonathan Kozol (The Nation, 2019).
See also:
- The 2020 election for US president
- Biden – from 2008
- Biden 2020
- The racist bones of Uncle Joe Biden
- James O. Eastland – so “civil” according to Biden
- Brown v Board
- school resegregation
- The New Jim Crow
- The 1994 Crime Bill
- White Liberals
562
Abagond 
Why don’t you mention the fact that Biden also opposes reparations?
“Busing was racist: Making Blacks go to White schools “implies that blacks have no reason to be proud of their inheritance and their own.”
This part I tend to agree with.
It should be a policy of resources to people, not people to resources.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
LikeLike
vp’s are often in the backseat but he was the invisible, at least al gore had the internet and global warming.
the amtrak station in wilmington de is named after him
LikeLiked by 1 person
“This part I tend to agree with.”
Biden’s quote represents a false equivalence which distracted from the issue if busing.
Busing was about ending segregated schools and compliance with the law. Pride was immaterial to that issue.
It should be a combination of both regarding people and resources (context matters).
Who is proud of inheriting inferior schooling? That would have undermind the ruling of Brown v Board and supported separate but equal.
Though the roles of pride and racism were on full display in Boston.
Now when he mentions busing kids to inferior schools, do you think if that persisted, resources would have followed those people?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brown v Board of education was our great downfall. For example, we could easily fix mass incarceration by racially segregating the criminal justice system. Humans share the psychology of other primates and are tribal by nature. Being judged by your own tribe would create a more equatable system.
LikeLike
Perhaps we should send Uncle Joe back in a time machine back to those good ole days with his segregationist buddies that he was so fond of.
LikeLike
@Mary Burrell
People are tribal by nature. There’s no way around it. It’s like the man who sees a wooden stick on the floor in the wilderness and jumps in terror because his mind tricked him into thinking it was a snake. Or the woman who shakes in terror whenever she passes the spot she was mugged at. Like it or not, we are psychological slaves to the human mind and there is nothing we can do about it. It is what it is.
LikeLike
Homophily is natural to us, though if tribalism in the form espoused by contemporary understanding was predominant, then civilizations as we know them would not have developed. Cooperation was essential.
Your examples only reflect learned behavior in classical conditioning.
If there was nothing we could do about this “psychological slavery,” talk therapy, philosophy, nor self-improvement would exist. We aren’t slaves to our minds, though we can be bound by them (intentionally or unintentionally).
LikeLike
@ The Anamist: That sounds like a bunch stupid new age mumbo jumbo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Mary Burrell
New?
That’s ancient knowledge aka wisdom. In Japan, a neat, orderly, and peaceful industrialized country they are staunchly against immigration. In white Russia, same thing. In most African countries it is taboo to date outside of your tribe! Why? Because it breeds confusion, racism, discrimination, distrust, marginalization, lust, identity issues, and crime. How long are we going to try to force integration until we realize it simply doesn’t work. The United States is going the way of Rome because we keep lying to ourselves about basic human nature. Stop trusting the liberal Western way and look to the Old World. Conservatism is simply submission to the subconscious mind. This is why immigrants surpass Americans. They stick to their conservative cultures
LikeLike
@PF Thought
Stereotypes are learnt, however stereotyping is inevitable and natural. Society is a movie, and human beings are actors. For instance, Italians changed their role from lowly immigrants to exotic whites.This country ain’t gon give black folk the same benefit. We just look too different.
LikeLiked by 1 person
re:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/take-japan-for-instance/
LikeLike
@jefe
Except I am black, not white. I don’t hate white folks, but I don’t care to live or work with them. All black environments are freeing.
Japan is knowledge/wisdom unlike the knowledge driven West which seems determined to fly off into outer space with their modern liberalism.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Jefe
Btw that post is bs. How can you claim racism in Japan is a Western import when the Japanese don’t want ANY foreigners? Not even other Asians. To most white Westerners ALL Asians are the same people.
LikeLike
@The Animist: I get it. You are about being segregated. I personally don’t want to live in that type of society. But you do you. Have a nice day.
LikeLike
@Mary Burrell
True. I was raised in a middle class black suburb. It was heaven.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Generalization and discrimination (predating race) are natural. We need them to survive as a species and function in daily life. Stereotyping, particularly racial, is learned. In fact, people often generalize from stereotypes hence their mostly inaccurate and if we’re talking in the absolute sense, always inacurate.
LikeLike
PF, I mean the intent was correct but the reasoning behind it was racist.
Why is it that a black child can only function probably in an academic setting, presumably when he or she is in the presence of a white child?
Yes I get that failing and poorly funded schools is a problem, but black children didn’t NEED white children around them to succeed, they needed better resources.
Busing just reinforced white supremacy and allowed white people to excuse their anti-blackness.
LikeLiked by 4 people
@Cherry Boy
THANK YOU. AMEN!
LikeLike
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_dKmtCWWao)
Pay close attention to 0:23 onward. This is why building black neighborhoods are important. When the media lies at least our eyes will tell children the truth about who we are as a people. Put children in white suburbs and they will easily believe the lie and forget who they are.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Let’s not conflate the issues. There’s two distinct though complimentary concerns, segregation and busing with both being affected by resources or lack thereof.
I didn’t say or mean to imply black kids need white children around them to be successful, that would be asinine. We agree on the need for better resources. The issue here is whether or not schools should have stayed racially segregated and how to affect changing them?
They chose busing? Now we would probably agree busing was not the most effect means to address school desegregation, but if you believe busing reinforced white supremacy what are the effects of school segregation?
White people who are anti-black will always find an excuse, they didn’t need busing. In fact racially-segregated schools was an effective means of reinforcing anti-blackness.
Would you have preferred for schools to stay racially segregated?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Appreciated the link.
LikeLike
“It should be a policy of resources to people, not people to resources.” – Cherry Boy
It would’ve been well enough if you had just conceded to PF Thought’s post and by recognizing that your statement above was somewhat short-sighted. Nonetheless, you are correct it SHOULD HAVE been “a policy of resources to people”. However, that didn’t happen. The inner city and rural schools were continually segregated and abysmally strapped for funds, unlike the suburbs which are/were overwhelmingly white and sat on a cornucopia of capital, even today.
Due to the lack of funds, inner city students were then transported by bus to more affluent school districts. Hence, as you put it, “not people to resources.” But this is exactly what happened, just as you said it shouldn’t be.
This situation is like a two-edged sword, because it cuts both ways depending on the circumstances, apparently to achieve the goal of a potential balance. Moreover, it also appears as if you believe that this situation is uni-pronged when in fact, it’s two-pronged.
So, my question to you is: What is or what would’ve been your proposal? In the alternative, how else would you have brought some type of balance or to attain the “equal protection clause” of the US Constitution to this situation, if the inner city students weren’t transported to the suburbs?
“Busing just reinforced white supremacy and allowed white people to excuse their anti-blackness.” – Cherry Boy
This is true. However, this is also the default setting of the vast majority of white people’s mindset. That is, they collectively say that they are an “exceptional people” and that they are supposedly a “superior” people as well. So, my advice is for you to refrain from believing in the things a certain group of people say about themselves; study their collective deeds throughout history and come to your own conclusions.
I would provide some examples here, but that would require me to make some hard turns to the right and the left, vertically and horizontally, thereby, wildly segueing off topic.
LikeLiked by 1 person