I watched none of either convention. I would not have liked this choice for his major speech.

I opposed busing when Joe did and I oppose it now, by the way.

Biden’s Intended Race on Race

Biden’s speech told America all we needed to know about why Biden chose Harris — despite their acrimonious past — and where Biden intends to take his campaign over the next two months. 

If Joe has his way, this will be a race on race.

His acceptance speech’s first words, after “good evening,” were “Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way. Give people light, those are words for our time.”

Having connected his campaign message with “light,” he would use “light” repeatedly throughout his 25-minute address. 

Although lacking specifics, his subliminal racial message was clear: I am the anti-racist; if you are not with me, you are a racist or condone racism.

For those on whom such subtlety might be lost, he was explicit too. He called out “communities who have known the injustice of the ‘knee on the neck.’” 

Biden also listed “the most compelling call for racial justice since the ’60s” as one of the “four historic crises” he enumerated. 

When mentioning coronavirus’s economic impact, he singled out minority communities as “bearing the brunt of it.” 

Race was everywhere.

The speech’s fulcrum was the implication that Biden was doing far more than just running for president. 

Biden laid claim to leading a movement to complete the work of the 1960s civil rights movement. 

“History has thrust one more urgent task on us. Will we be the generation that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character?” 

Biden even cited the Charlottesville protests of three years earlier as the motivation behind his campaign (despite not announcing for another two years): “For me, a call for action. At that moment, I knew I’d have to run.”