When Joe Biden tweeted that choosing Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate gave hope to “black and brown girls” that they too might be president, no one thought much of it.
But when a cartoonist in Australia used the tweet to ridicule Biden for yet another racially insensitive gaffe, the usual Twitter mob declared the artist and his drawing racist, along with the newspaper that published it, The Australian.
And so the Left has declared, apparently, that jokes or snarky commentary about Biden must pass muster with the mob, the corollary to which is that jokes and wisecracks about Harris will be off-limits entirely.
The Tweet
Sleepy Joe unbosomed himself of the following opinion on his choice of Harris, the angry leftist child of immigrants who denounces the “one percent” even as she enjoys the privileges of that class:
This morning, little girls woke up across this nation — especially Black and Brown girls who so often may feel overlooked and undervalued in our society — potentially seeing themselves in a new way: As the stuff of Presidents and Vice Presidents.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 12, 2020
It was yet another sentiment with which one may not disagree without facing the usual charge of racial animus.
The Australian’s Johannes Leak forgot that unwritten rule and delivered a cartoon with Biden standing at a podium in front of Harris uttering these words in the first panel: “It’s time to heal a nation divided by racism.”
But then came the closer: “So I’ll hand you over to this little brown girl while I go for a lie-down.”
It’s Racist!
Immediately, the Twitter tornado commenced.
Tweeted Andrew Giles, a leftist member of Australia’s House of Representatives, “It’s offensive and racist. There should be no place for this in Australia, it diminishes us all. It’s time for zero tolerance of racism, and a national anti-racism strategy.”
Why a cartoon requires a “national anti-racism strategy” is apparently self-evident, but anyway, a “climate and clean tech author and analyst” you’ve never heard of, Ketan Joshi, offered this opinion: “Here’s your little reminder of how ludicrously racist Australian commercial media are.”
Sean Kelly, a hirsute fellow who purports to be a journalist, thinks likewise: “The cartoon is racist, it shouldn’t have been published, the editor of the paper should apologise (like, now), and anyone who still thinks racism isn’t a thing in Australian media is crazy.”
Chris Dore, the newspaper’s editor, rightly responded this way:
When Johannes used those words, expressed in a tweet by Biden yesterday, he was highlighting Biden’s language and apparent attitudes, not his own.
The intention of the commentary in the cartoon was to ridicule racism, not perpetuate it.
In the context of Biden’s words, this is evident. Clearly some, including those without that context, have wrongly attributed Biden’s words to Johannes, and in doing so have attributed abhorrent and inaccurate motives to him.
The Australian, and Johannes, opposes racism in all of its guises.
That, of course, was not good enough.
“This defence is blatantly ludicrous to anyone still connected even slightly to reality,” Joshi furiously wrote.
Biden’s Other Racial Gaffes
Why Biden felt the urge to single out “black and brown girls” is a mystery, but it’s not the first time the gaffe-prone candidate has uttered racial commentary that raised an eyebrow, and knowing this is his last run at the White House hasn’t slowed him down.
In a recent interview, Biden explained that blacks, unlike Latinos, all think alike: “What you all know, and what most people don’t know, is that unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things.”
In an interview before that, he told blacks they aren’t black if they vote for Trump: “Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
Those winning remarks are of a piece with his comments about Indians. “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent,” he said.
Barack Obama, he said, was a trailblazing candidate for president because “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Image: Tero Vesalainen/iStock/Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
