If Joe Biden is to be condemned for opposing busing, throw in the Democratic Party

As Democrats struggled for space and recognition during the initial debate free-for-alls, Sen. Kamala Harris challenged the civil rights bona fides of front-runner Joe Biden with a haymaker centering on his opposition to busing in the 1970s.

Despite his equivocations to the contrary, the historical record proves Biden did indeed oppose busing. If he feels he was wrong in doing so, he should simply apologize and move on. But to deny his clearly stated position at the time is problematic. That said, even though Harris was right, she was incomplete. If Biden is to be condemned, so should the Democratic Party.

The truth of the matter is Joe Biden is a company man who has always been in line with the dominant ideologies of his party for the most part. His broadsides on busing in the 1970s won him points with white voters in his home state of Delaware.

Shamefully, the Democratic Party did the same nationally. After the Supreme Court endorsed student assignment plans mandating the use of busing to break the ongoing yoke of school segregation with the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education decision in 1971, the Democrats embraced the policy in its 1972 platform. After searing white backlash, the party called for busing to only be used as “a judicial tool of the last resort” by 1976. Quite a shift.

By the 1980s, many Democrats had joined already racially calcified Republicans in turning back the busing clock. In March of 1982, Jesse Jackson wrote a damning editorial whose title borrowed from Julian Bond’s famous conclusion, “It’s not the bus. It’s us.”

Jackson opened, “Political opportunists in the Senate want to turn the Supreme Court’s school-desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) into an Indiary treaty – a law on the books, but unenforceable.” He carefully pointed out that Democrats were in on the racial viciousness. “There is emerging a conspiracy between Democrats and Republicans and between the executive and legislative branches to take away Federal legal protections for which thousands of people, black and white, have struggled and died.”

Very importantly, Jackson and others correctly emphasized that American whites were not opposed to busing. They were (and are) opposed to busing for the purposes of desegregation.

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As they gear up for 2020, Republicans and their right-wing shills are pushing the narrative that the Democratic Party has gone off the rails. They argue the Blues are out of step with America and have become an uber-leftist, Stalinist, socialist mob. They want to open the borders, take away your rights (whatever that means), and give away everything you’ve worked for to poor and dark people for free. Of course, this is another in a long line of lies.

The truth of the matter is, outside of a few outliers, whether it be busing, crime, immigration, Wall Street or war, the Democrats, from their presidents on down (Obama, who did not turn into Malcolm X once elected, included), are not and have never been as far left or progressive as some people think.

This includes matters of race. Even though blacks have been their most loyal constituency since 1960, the Democrats constantly push the belief that a candidate who actually talks substantively about systemic black suffering (outside of black churches, of course) is unelectable. And we let them get away with it.

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Biden himself reaffirmed to CNN that he believes he and the majority of the Democratic Party are, at best (or worst, depending on who you ask), center left. “Where it’s not is way left,” he said. He doubled down by saying progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “a brilliant woman, bright woman but she won a primary. In the (2018) general election fights, who won? Mainstream Democrats.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s thoughts on the so-called Democratic left thinking she’s out of step with where the country and Party need to go? “If the left doesn’t think I’m left enough, so be it.”

It may change, but right now the Pelosis and Bidens still run the Democratic Party, not the Ocasio-Cortezes, Ilhan Omars or even Elizabeth Warrens. So, let’s stop with all the talk that makes the Democrats long-standing, progressive champions.

On most fronts, it’s simply not true. Of course, their “trump card” (pun intended) is they’re not as bad as the Republicans. In the Democratics’ defense, that’s true. But, does being better than a savage party helmed by a cabal of madmen make you good? That’s one hell of a low bar.

Please, please, please do not misread this. It is NOT an endorsement of the Republicans. That said, from busing and beyond, it is definitely a call to study politics past and present and take the Democrats to task as well. This is essential because, sadly, the elephants are trampling us and the donkeys are making us look like asses.

Are you still wondering why I’m an independent?

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Dr. Ricky L. Jones is chair of Pan-African studies at the University of Louisville. His next book, co-authored with Marc Murphy, is titled, “Colin, Confederates and Con-Artists: The American Tragedy of Erasing History.” His column appears biweekly in the Courier Journal. Visit him at www.rickyljones.com.