The Campaign Update: Is Old Joe Biden Running a Racist White House?
As the states of Texas and Georgia were enacting new voter-integrity laws last year, Old Joe Biden accused Republican leaders in those states of “bringing back Jim Crow” segregation laws that were used in the old South to discourage Blacks and other minorities from voting. Given that both states experienced record off-year voter turnout during this year’s election season, the nominal president has quit using that line now.
We should never forget that it was Young Joe Biden himself who demonstrated his own personal affection for the proponents of those Jim Crow laws, given that he loves to brag about all the time he spent during the ‘70s and ‘80s paling around with segregationist Democrat senators like James Eastman, Howell Heflin, Willam Fulbright, Herman Talmage and others and spoke at the funeral of a former Grand Kleagle of the KKK, Sen. Robert Byrd. Biden and his fellow Democrats loved Byrd so deeply that they made him their Senate Majority/Minority leader in the 1990s and 2000s. Given that history, perhaps it should not surprise us that Old Joe Biden is now being tacitly accused of running a racist operation on this White House staff.
This story didn’t get much notice, but Politico reported last week that at least 21 Black staffers have left the White House since December in what not-so-clever DC Swampers are referring to “Blaxit.”
Politico says the staffers are exiting due to a variety of complaints, which include a lack of opportunity and lack of mentoring by senior, mainly-white staffers like Chief of Staff Ron Klain.
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
The reasons for the departures may vary. But the totality of them has not gone unnoticed within the ranks, according to interviews with nine current and former Black White House officials. Three Black staffers who currently work in the White House — and were granted anonymity because of fear of reprisal — said the exodus has hurt morale, compounding problems that exist elsewhere. They described an operation in which mentorship is hard to come by and opportunity to move up the ranks of a tight-knit operation is exceptionally rare.
“We’re here and we’re doing a lot of work but we’re not decision-makers and there’s no real path towards becoming decision-makers,” said one of the current Black White House officials. “There is no real feedback and there’s no clear path to any kind of promotions.”
Biden had pledged upon entering office that his administration “would look like America looks” and include “a full range of talents we have in all our people.” He and his team have subsequently taken steps to create the most diverse administration ever, far beyond his immediate predecessors. He also made history with the ascension of Black women to the positions of vice president, Supreme Court justice and press secretary, and on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, among other posts.
But at lower levels, that pledge has been harder to sustain. While there are several, first-in-history Black leaders of important White House divisions — like Domestic Policy Council head Susan Rice, Council of Economic Advisers director Cecilia Rouse and Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young — none have Black deputies except Conley. Conley is leaving, though she will be replaced by a Black woman, a White House official said.
Some “people have not had the best experiences and a lot of that has to do with the dearth of Black leadership,” said one former White House official, who is Black. “Think about any workplace. Black folks need some person to go to, to strategize and be a mentor, and we just don’t have as many folks who can be mentors to us.”