Black leadership group says Biden used black voters to gain office, then abandoned them
Black Americans propelled Biden to the presidency and counted on him to deliver on his promises, but are finding he is failing to deliver
Biden won the White House thanks to support from the black community, but has failed to deliver on any of the promises he made. A black leadership group now claims he has abandoned their agenda. (Photo: Cory Morse/AP)
Joe Biden used his victory speech the Saturday after the election back in November 2020 to deliver an emphatic “thank-you” to the black voters who overwhelmingly backed him in major cities, helping propel him to victory in crucial swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
"Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African-American community stood up again for me," Biden said, repeatedly slamming his fist on the podium as the crowd erupted in cheers. "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours."
Black voters, particularly in key cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, were a critical factor in Biden's success. Exit polls revealed that 87 percent of black voters backed Biden compared to just 12 percent for President Donald Trump. Those voters, however, also indicated that Trump had improved his standing among black voters compared to 2016 and, outside of the urban areas, Trump captured over 30 percent of the black vote..
Biden has carefully cultivated loyal Democratic voters in the black community, both in this campaign and throughout his decades in Washington. “My entire life I’ve been involved with the black community,” he said during the last debate in 2020. “My entire career has been wrapped up in dealing with civil rights and civil liberties.”
But surveying Biden’s record, one is left with a different impression: Biden has, in fact, built a career on the back of steadfast African-American support while consistently betraying those same voters.
Elected as county councilman in 1970, Biden was known as an advocate for public housing, earning him racist abuse from bigoted white locals in Delaware. Yet he quickly assured the press about his public housing stance: “I am not a Crusader Rabbit championing the rights of people.”
True to his word, when plans for a controversial moderate-income housing project came to the New Castle County Council in 1972 — one opposed by a crowd of hundreds who attended the meeting — Biden voted with the rest of the council to table it indefinitely.
Biden fought desegregation vehemently in Delaware as a member of the New Castle County Counsil, his racist stance propelling him into the U.S. Senate. (Photo: Steve Liss/Getty Images)
More accurately, Biden disappeared after a recess, and the vote had to be delayed until he could be found and his vote put on the record. When the county’s housing authority later drew up plans to buy a complex to convert to “non-elderly” public housing, the agency’s outreach to discuss the plan with Biden fell on deaf ears. Biden was too busy campaigning for the Senate and wanted nothing before the predominatly white voting base in Delaware — which some of called the northern-most Southern state — that would put his election chances in jeopardy..
Upon entering the Senate, Biden went where one would expect a champion of civil rights to go. He was appointed to the Senate Banking Committee, where he worked on bills to regulate predatory private debt collection and sat on its housing subcommittee.
But not for long. Explaining that “other issues are more important for Delaware — the issues of crime and busing,” Biden departed Banking in 1977 for the Judiciary Committee. The decision paved the way for him to become the Senate’s leading liberal opponent of busing and architect of mass incarceration, each of his efforts calamitous to the cause of black equality.
The full significance of Biden’s anti-busing crusade has rarely been explored. Though his 1975 anti-busing amendment failed, by clearing the Senate, it was credited by the Congressional Quarterly as signaling the end of the upper chamber’s previous commitment to defending desegregation measures.
Meanwhile, his lasting anti-busing achievement — the 1977 Eagleton-Biden amendment, named for Biden and Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-MO) which barred the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from using its funding for busing — became the bane of existence for civil rights activists and school administrators around the country.
The legislation blocked the agency from fully implementing desegregation plans. That it had no effect whatsoever on the court-ordered busing in Delaware, the ostensible reason for Biden’s sharp right turn on the issue, didn’t prevent him from being pleased with its impact.
Biden was so against busing that, on a Judiciary Committee filled with former segregationists, he became the member who would vote against two historic black nominees to the Justice Department because of their stance on the matter. He also supported the nomination of Justice Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, much to the ire of liberal Democrats who were convinced Kennedy would side with the conservatives on the court to curb the runaway Leftist civil rights agenda — irking them even more when they turned out to be right.
Police escorts were necessary for students being bused to alternative school districts in 1977 Delaware, with Joe Biden championing the anti-busing, anti-desegregation rhetoric at the time. (Photo: Fran Edison/Delaware News-Journal)
This is the guy who is currently promoting an end to so-called “systemic racism” that he claims has become “embedded” in American culture. The occupant of the Oval Office says the country is as racist as it was in the 60s when Sheriff Bull Connor in Alabama was knocking demonstrators down with fire hoses and sicking police dogs on them to keep them getting back up. Ironically, he forgets he was one of those racists, as was most of the Democrat Party in that era.
So it should come as no surprise that, on Thursday, a black leadership group slammed President Biden after his State of the Union address Wednesday night, with one member stating, “Joe Biden used black Americans to ascend to the White House, but has basically turned his back on them.”
Members of Project 21 — a 25-year-old group that is an “initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research to promote the views of African-Americans whose entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to family and commitment to individual responsibility have not traditionally been echoed by the nation’s civil rights establishment,” as their website states — issued a press release Wednesday lashing out at Biden.
Project 21 Co-Chairman Stacy Washington stated, “The policy needs of black Americans always come last with liberals — regardless of the high percentage of blacks who support them. President Biden claimed his administration is on track to cut child poverty in half, but failed to cite any metrics or data to support that claim.
Thirty percent of black kids live in poverty. There are over 97,000 black children in foster care. In less than 100 days, the Biden Administration has admitted over 23,000 migrant children into the country, putting their needs ahead of those of black children. What are your plans for American children, Mr. President? Black Americans want to know.”
Project 21 member Marie Fischer echoed, “Joe Biden used black Americans to ascend to the White House, but has basically turned his back on them. The examples are epic. By allowing biological boys to compete in women’s sports, he will cause girls — especially black girls — to lose out on college scholarships that could help them attain a better life.
Then there’s amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. Studies like one from the National Bureau of Economic Research have shown that, as illegal immigration increases, jobs become increasingly scarce for black Americans while incarceration rates rise. A $15 minimum wage will similarly decrease employment opportunities for black youth. Biden got into office with the typical bait-and-switch that the left always uses on black America.”
“A hundred days of divisiveness have hurt the black community, with damaging policies bringing more harm than help,” asserted Project 21 member Martin Baker. “For example, while every other ethnic group has seen their unemployment numbers diminish, blacks have seen theirs rise since Biden entered office.
One impact of Biden’s push to institute a $15 an hour minimum wage will be that black workers lose their entry-level or minimum-wage jobs, as has already happened in New York City, California and other venues where the higher wage requirement has been initiated. (Photo: Rita Sanchez/New York Daily News)
A recent H&R Block survey of black-owned businesses revealed more than half have suffered from a 50 percent loss of revenue during this pandemic — yet Biden and his allies champion a higher minimum wage that would make the outlook even more bleak. These are not actions that benefit our community.”
Another Project 21 member, Derryck Green added, “Joe Biden once proclaimed in an interview on an urban radio station that, if blacks had trouble deciding between him and Donald Trump, they ‘ain’t black.’ But what have those blacks who proved their authenticity received for their votes?
What they usually receive after blindly supporting liberal politicians: racialized talk about ‘justice’ and ‘equity’ and promises to support minority businesses, without significant action to actually empower American blacks trying to recover in a post-COVID economy. Biden signed executive orders for gay and transgendered Americans, for illegal aliens and Latinos and for gender equity. But blacks have been predictably ignored.”
There is no area of Biden’s foreign or domestic policy that does not negatively impact black Americans. No group in America has suffered more from decades of unchecked illegal immigration than African-Americans, yet Democrats expect them to compliantly support a radical open-borders agenda that promises us nothing but more hardship.
Another area of Biden police that impacts black Americans is in the realm of energy. Biden was less than forthcoming on the issue of whether he would work to ban natural gas drilling if elected president. When pressed on the issue during the last Democratic presidential debate, he said he would insist on "no new fracking [the progressive scare word for natural gas drilling] in America."
The result of that national energy policy change is that low income families — mostly represented in the black community — are forced to pay higher energy costs at the gas pump and in heating and colling their homes than would have been expected under a continuing Trump administration.
Biden has attempted to gloss over the damage he has done to the black community during his nearly 50 years in Washington, but black voters are beginning to see through his excuses and lies. When the congressional elections of 2022 come around, don’t expect to see a big black voter turnout for Biden-supported Democrats, or — for that matter — any Democrats at all.