Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, CLEVELAND, Ohio-Former vice president Joe Biden, the front runner for the Democratic nomination for president in a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls, apologized on Saturday at a campaign event in Sumpter, California for troubling remarks that praise his prior working relationship in the Senate with segregationist senators, comments that have dogged his campaign, particularly since former California general and presidential candidate U.S. Sen Kamala Harris called him out on it at the first Democratic debate some two weeks ago in Miami, Florida.
“Was I wrong a few weeks ago?” asked Biden before a largely Black of some 250 people at Saturday's rally. “Yes, I was. I regret it, and I’m sorry for any of the pain of misconception that caused anybody.”
A longtime senator -turner vice president under Barack Obama, the country's first Black president who served two -four year terms until 2017, Biden said his record on Civil Rights speaks for itself.
And it does, including his support and vote as a senator of the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the only Black Supreme Court Justice on the nine-member bench who stances against Civil Rights and women's rights are unprecedented.
But Justice Thomas tricked a cadre of so-called liberals into believing he might do right by Blacks and liberal-leaning Democrats once confirmed, a misnomer in all respects.
Under pressure from Civil Rights advocates, and rival candidates, also including New Jersey U.S Sen. Cory Booker, Biden reversed his stance against an apology over his pro-segregationist remarks, one he said was not needed because "there is not a racist bone in my body."
Obviously the former vice president realizes the importance of the Black vote in presidential elections, some 7% of Black voters and some 4.4 million Obama voters staying
home in 2016 when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost a close presidential election to Republican Donald Trump.
Trump tweeted Saturday that Biden's apology is self serving and he looks forward to beating him in the 2020 November election.
Though he was widely accepted at the South Carolina rally, Biden's poll numbers have dropped.
Harris surged to second place and within five percentage points of Biden, 76, following her spectacular performance during the first Democratic debate, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS
Other polls have her in third place behind Sen. Bernie Sanders.
According to such CNN poll, 22% of registered Democratic voters want Biden for the party's presidential nomination, 17% Harris, 15% Sen Elizabeth Warren, and 14% Sen. Sanders.
The others, among some 23 Democratic candidates, including Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and Sen. Cory Booker, the only Black in the race besides Harris, tested at 5% or below.
Harris posted a nine point increase in comparison to the last CNN poll conducted in May, Warren an eight point increase, Biden a decline of 10 percentage points, and Sanders a decrease of three percentage points.
Harris took on Biden during the debate on race, saying he has fraternized with segregationists and that he should not have opposed busing.
A former U.S. senator from 1973-2009 when he became vice president, Biden said in response that he opposed busing only as ordered by the Department of Education, an intriguing and likely calculated response, pundits said.
"Do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America?" asked Harris during Thursday night's debate before a televised audience.
Biden shot back.
"I did not oppose busing in America," said Biden, a former U.S. senator who served with Obama for two consecutive four-year terms as his vice president, from 2009-2016. "What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education."
Busing is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools so as to redress prior racial segregation of schools and was implemented in the 1970s and 1980s under federal court supervision in many school districts in major cities across America. It is a by-product of the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial discrimination in public education.
We interviewed Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for his first successful bid for president, a Call and Post cover story by investigative and political journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, a former 14-year Cleveland schools biology teacher whose questions to the nation's first Black president, then a U.S. junior senator representing Illinois, include issues as to the now defunct Cleveland schools desegregation case. As to the Obama interview CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
Reed v. Rhodes is a racial discrimination lawsuit filed in 1976 by the NAACP on behalf of Black children and their families, and against the state of Ohio and the school district where the federal court ultimately found that the state of Ohio and school district were running a dual school system to the detriment off Black children and their families, and in blatant violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
That deseg-case and its affiliated remedial orders, one of the remedial orders busing, was dissolved in 1998, the federal judge on the case at the time, Judge George White, granting release of the state and the school district from the long standing deseg-case.
A largely Black major American city, Cleveland is the second most segregated city in the nation behind Boston.
Coleman asked Obama in that one-on-one interview undertaken as to his first bid for president in 2008 what mechanism was in place to access educational disparities between Black students and their White counterparts since desegregation court orders that required such were no longer in existence.
Obama said that the Republican-Centered No Child Left Behind has a mechanism for assessing educational disparities between Black and White public school students.
"The No Child Left Behind Act actually has provisions for monitoring the achievement gap between Black and White children," said Obama in that interview. "Whether they are doing it on the local level, I don't know."
Obama said also in that interview that if elected president he would address the No Child Left Behind Act as it relates to Black children, and he did, partly, later securing relief from standard testing as an assessment tool from the act.
Data are explicit in showing that such test are bias to Black children.
And the president said during Coleman's interview that while he is against educational vouchers in public education, that desegregation via school choice within a public school district is lawful.
Coleman posed the question to Obama on the desegregation issue during that interview 2008 as follows:
"Last year a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision that struck down public school intra-district choice plans in Seattle, WA and in Louisville, Ky., saying they relied on an unconstitutional use of racial criteria. Some believe that this ruling is contrary to the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed racial segregation in public education. Do you agree and what is your position on this issue, given that you are a former Civil Rights attorney?"
Obama responded as follows:
"I do believe that the decision is contrary to Brown vs. Board of Education. I think the Supreme Court ruling was wrong. Voluntary efforts to desegregate public schools are supported by the Constitution."
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief. Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com. As to the Obama interview CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
