Former Obama campaign co-chair Artur Davis went on CNN today and blasted Vice President Joe Biden for his “They gonna put y’all back in chains” comment. Davis notes that everyone in the audience knew exactly what Biden meant, and it wasn’t a metaphor for Wall Street regulation. Take a look.
ARTUR DAVIS: When I heard him reach for the bottom of the deck and talk about one party putting people in chains? When I heard someone that I admired and have been on platforms with, talk about ordinary conservative principles being essentially racial viciousness – that’s the allegation that he was making yesterday. I was disappointed by it, but I have to tell you it brought back memories to me. It brought back memories of these Democratic politicians in the South who think they can go before black crowds and say one thing, but nobody else will hear it, and that they can somehow get a cheer in the room, and that they can blithely go on about their business.
Davis could not be more right about this. Those of us from and in the South have seen the exact sort of Democrat snake that Davis is talking about. The region is infested with them. We need to see a lot more of Artur Davis on the campaign trail and on talk shows. He’s a one-man army against the Obama campaign. Regarding Biden, Davis added “Every black person in that room knew who the ‘ya’ll’ were, knows what the ‘chains’ were.”
The fact is, Biden’s statement about chains was one of his few non-gaffes of the week. He knew exactly what he was saying. This was racial dog-whistle language intended to stir up hatred and fear.
The good news is that Obama-Biden’s campaign of hate isn’t fooling anyone. Former VA Gov. Doug Wilder went on Fox today and also called Biden out. Wilder says that slavery is “nothing to joke about.”
Wilder charitably chalks it up to a gaffe, perhaps because to admit that a fellow Democrat went there intentionally might force Wilder to follow Davis and switch parties.
Well, you got to give Wolf Blitzer credit. First, for his putting down of DWS on her dissembling about the Ryan medicare plan, and now for allowing Arthur Davis to make the points he did without too much interruption.
“Wilder says that slavery is “nothing to joke about.””
Unfortunately, it was not a joke. Biden just is that big a jerk to say it.
Why do black people continue to support a party that proclaims they’re all born weak, retarded, shiftless and violent? Sick.
I saw that interview and Wilder went on to say that the Democrats need to talk to voters as EQUALS, which I interpret to mean that he was objecting to the tired old, ‘you people’ speak of the old plantation owner Democrats when addressing their reliable constituency.
Cue up Hillary…I ain’t in no ways tarrrrred….clip.
Seriously. Wilder is an old school, sensible black Democrat. If we can push Wilder a bit further there will be big problems for Obama.
How much longer is this whitey schtick gonna play? When will the majority of the AA community figure out that these guys have been playing them for chumps?
The context cannot help Biden here. Biden said Romeny would “put y’all back in chains.” The ONLY group in the US that can be put BACK into are African-Americans. The claim that Biden meant that Romney’s policies would put the middle-class in chains is untenable — because the middle-class cannot be put BACK into chains. The sentence ONLY makes sense as a reference to slavery. As such, it was a vile slur.
So he’s a typical leftist. What’s new?
“Those of us from and in the South have seen the exact sort of Democrat snake that Davis is talking about. The region is infested with them.”
Amen and Frakkin-A, bubba. I grew up in SC with a more than average exposure to local and state politics. Blacks would be forming their own lynch mobs if they could’ve been privy to the condescending racism regularly spewed from the mouths of the same Democrats they habitually voted for.
Yes, I’m talking about That Word.
And the local gentry wondered why I strayed from the fold and registered as a Republican…
Everyone knows the Southern Belle/Debutante stereotype of high-maintenance females, yet we don’t hear enough about the Gentrified Know-it-All Southern Male. They’re often easy to spot, tending to be lawyers and politicians who drink a lot: Grisham characters without the pretense of liberal egalitarianism. “Matlock” meets “Mad Men.”
The contrast after living for a couple of decades in the Midwest has been striking to say the least. At least the Dems up here have better manners (or sense) when it comes to that particular idiom. Then again, they’re playing to the Big Union kneecap-busters, whose kind we didn’t have much of Down South.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Midwestern working-man Dems speak of the Unions behind closed doors in the same way Southern gentry Dems speak of African Americans.