Obviously nobody thinks that this gaffe will cause black voters to flip to Trump. But it did bring out an interesting comment from Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, stating that blacks can only think one way politically and be authentically black. She later deleted the tweet, but Mollie Hemingway captured it, and made the correct political point:
Hannah-Jones tweeted, “There is a difference between being politically black and being racially black. I am not defending anyone but we all know this and should stop pretending that we don’t,” to which Hemingway replied, “Pulitzer Prize winner appears to support how whites are allowed more freedom of thought than blacks. If you’re white, you’re allowed to be liberal or conservative. If you’re black, you will be marginalized and demeaned unless you think the way the powers that be say you must.”
More from Dreher:
So, Biden’s gaffe was meaningful — not that it’s going to move votes to Trump, but because it revealed an ugly truth about how black liberals police opinion among black folks. If you don’t agree with the left, then you’re not only wrong, you’re a race traitor.
If Donald Trump said in a Sean Hannity interview that if you’re white, and can’t figure out why you should vote for him, that you ain’t really white, he would be crucified in the media — and rightly so! When he said last year that Jews who vote Democratic are being disloyal to the tribe, he was justifiably waylaid. But see, we have this double standard. Pulitzer Prize-winner Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times looks like she is affirming this double standard.
Of course she is. This is who the Democrats are. Stacey Abrams herself said so. The failed black Georgia gubernatorial candidate, said in a speech a year ago that identity politics are “who we are” as Democrats, and that the party should openly embrace them to win.Lately Abrams has been in the news, openly campaigning for the No. 2 slot on Biden’s ticket. Maybe you saw the recent worshipful profile of her in the Washington Post Magazine.
If Biden picks Abrams, there won’t be any pretense any more from the Democrats about identity politics. Biden’s gaffe this morning was more than anything a gaffe in the Michael Kinsley sense: when a politician inadvertently discloses the truth.
At the Dallas Morning News, we have the inevitable Republicans pouncing: “Hours later, he apologized. By then, the Trump campaign had pounced, arguing that this was no ordinary gaffe but an outrageous instance of race-baiting and condescension from the likely nominee of a party that both relies on black voters and at times takes that support for granted.”
They’re jumping at the New York Times! Kevin Williamson of National Review notes that the Times Tries Very Hard Not to Talk about Biden’s Latest Gaffe:” “The bombshell line is mentioned in the lead and then followed by . . . paragraphs of tax-policy details,” followed by “the inevitable ‘Republicans pounce!’ angle (‘conservatives jumping on Mr. Biden, 77, for acting as the arbiter of blackness’) and the ‘But, Trump!’ angle, too.”
Meanwhile, at the L.A. Times, Republicans are seizing, and the L.A. Times plays the “botched joke” defense of Biden: “A top campaign aide said Biden was joking, but Republicans quickly seized on the statement and some black Democrats expressed concern that the remark could turn off a crucial voting bloc for the presumptive Democratic nominee.”
Keep rockin’! Or as Jim Treacher likes to say, “When Republicans screw up, that’s the story. When Democrats screw up, the Republicans’ reaction is the story.”
h/t ED