Speaking in Maryland, President Biden fumbled while extolling Maryland’s first black governor’s days playing wide receiver on the Johns Hopkins football team.
“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore. He’s the real deal and the boy looks like he can still play,” Biden said. “He’s got some guns on him!”
Obviously the President was showing his racist streak, right? After all, calling a black man “boy” is a racist slur. Watch “In the Heat of the Night.” Thus conservative websites, blogs, pundits and news sources have feigned horror, and produced condemnations of Joe’s words–racist dog whistles!—worthy of Charles M. Blow or Joy Reid.
Oh, I get it, I do. This is a genuine IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (Ethics Alarms initials for “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”) if there ever was one. The news media’s double standards in regard to Trump and Biden are ridiculous: Donald Trump would be called racist if he referred to a black 7-year-old as a “boy.” In all matters, actions, words and policies, Trump is presumed to have a malign motive, because he’s baaaaaad. Joe, in stark contrast, is always given the benefit of the doubt because he is obviously a nice guy who has never had a mean thought in his life. (He’s not a nice guy, but never mind; I assume you know that.) The conservative and Republican pouncers are just trying to inject some equity into the “gotcha!” wars. “Sauce for the goose” and all that.
But this is ridiculous. “Boy” was once frequently used as a term of familiarity and endearment for men, just as “girl” was for women before the term was labeled as condescending and sexist. It is crystal clear that this is the benign, if outdated, use Biden intended, and if it is clear what any word is intended to mean, then the communication process has been a success. I know that progressives have chosen to reject that principle, seeking, for example, to punish professors who utter the word “nigger” while quoting testimony, speeches and documents that used the slur. That censorious tactic is Orwellian and wrong, and the right way to oppose it is to oppose it, not emulate it.
Joe’s not a racist, he’s a life-long dummy whose cognitive faculties have declined precipitously since he was a younger dummy. His mouth’s connection to what passes for his brain has always had a short; he has a flat learning curve, and societal evolution in interpersonal conduct just doesn’t register on him. This is why he still sniffs, feels up and sexually harasses girls and women like my creepy Uncle Trefon did in the 1960s.
The President’s use of “boy” this week to describe a black Democrat wasn’t racist or intended to be, and rightish critics should just shut up about it. (Someone might explain to Joe that he should strike the word from his vocabulary in such situations, but he won’t remember, just like he can’t remember that it wasn’t illegal to own a cannon in 1789. He’ll do this again. Count on it.
There are so, so many legitimate things to criticize Biden for; there is no need to contrive reasons. His problem isn’t that he’s racist. His problem—well, one of them— is that he’s a very old 80, was never very bright, and people in his condition should never be President.
Ethics Alarms 
Oh no, I think this is perfectly all right. Bullies hate nothing so much as when their own tactics are turned against them and someone does to them exactly what they’ve been doing to others, because they can’t object and not sound like the hypocrites that they are. The Democratic Party made this bed for Biden, now he has to lie in it.
Is this indicative of Biden’s being a racist? Probably not, and certainly not in a world before CRT where everything is racist. Is it a Jumbo example of the double standards of the mainstream media? Yes.
It’s also typical (but in this case faux) jock bonhomie which Trump would be skewered for by all the feminist lefties.
But when the left declares everything racist, they are estopped from anyone else doing the same thing.
Actually, Jack I do believe that Biden is a racist. His actions as chair of the Judiciary committee in 1995 speaks volumes. He opposed bussing not because it would force kids to spend much more time on the bus but because it would create “a racial jungle”. Joe Biden eliminated Pell grants to inmates attending college as part of their reentry program which shut down many programs. He told the he world if you don’t vote for him you ain’t black and claimed his opposition would put y’all back in chains. And we all know about his clean and articulate comment about Obama. He is the worst type of bigoted racist- one who attempts to ingratiate himself as their benefactor while simultaneously promoting policies that mire minorities in poverty.
His use of the term boy was a throw back. It was a throw back to the time when he referred to all black males as “boy”.
At a minimum, it’s extremely tone deaf. It’s just goofy. Imagine being engaged with Jack Kemp over a policy issue and saying of Kemp, “He looks like he can still throw.” Joe’s a dolt.
It’s 2023. The sin of calling someone “boy” isn’t racial anymore. The sin is assuming someone’s gender with such horrible, binary language. Biden has no way of knowing if Moore identifies as a boy or not.
“the right way to oppose it is to oppose it, not emulate it.”
Simply opposing these double standards hasn’t worked at all for several decades of trying. Perhaps this strategy of forcing accountability for them has a better chance of success. I’m no fan of this tactic, but just saying “no” is part of what has brought us to this low point in history.
It’s OK; he meant to say “trunalimunumaprzure”, and it just came out as “boy”.