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Congratulations to our presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden!
Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders was against 'busing' in the 1970s [View all]Celerity
(43,299 posts)25. that is pure spin, and not true
as has been documented countless times
completely debunked
It also uses the old tried and true states rights claptrap and once again spins up the de facto versus de jure angle that non-southern cities always tossed out to try and keep up segregation (and not just on education)
CNN fact checked your claims
and found them very wanting indeed
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1144461457624403974.html
Daniel Dale
@ddale8
Reporter for CNN, fact-checking politicians.
6 tweets, 1 min read
Biden's claim tonight that he only opposed federally mandated busing and did not generally oppose "busing in America" was a flagrant misrepresentation of his position in the '70s and '80s. He'd made crystal clear he opposed busing as a concept, as a matter of principle.
Biden's remarks on busing in the 1970s were generally very unequivocal -- "I oppose busing. It's an asinine concept." "A bankrupt concept." "Busing does not work." He expressed pride for making anti-busing sentiment "respectable" among liberals.
As recently re-reported by WaPo, Biden said things like this about busing: What it says is, In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. Thats racist!"
It wasn't just words: working with avowed racists, Biden pushed legislation to make it difficult to run busing programs. There *was* a caveat: he said he would support busing in cases where it'd been proven that a community had been intentionally segregated. But otherwise no.
Biden's campaign says that his position on busing would not have stopped the particular local busing program that Kamala Harris was a part of, since it was voluntarily adopted by the local community. In general, though: she was not mischaracterizing his opposition to busing. Biden campaigns argument is that him saying in the 70s that he opposed busing was understood then to mean he simply opposed federal-mandated busing, not all busing. Like when GOP said under Obama they oppose health reform, was obvious it meant Obamacare, not all health reform.
Biden's remarks on busing in the 1970s were generally very unequivocal -- "I oppose busing. It's an asinine concept." "A bankrupt concept." "Busing does not work." He expressed pride for making anti-busing sentiment "respectable" among liberals.
As recently re-reported by WaPo, Biden said things like this about busing: What it says is, In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. Thats racist!"
It wasn't just words: working with avowed racists, Biden pushed legislation to make it difficult to run busing programs. There *was* a caveat: he said he would support busing in cases where it'd been proven that a community had been intentionally segregated. But otherwise no.
Biden's campaign says that his position on busing would not have stopped the particular local busing program that Kamala Harris was a part of, since it was voluntarily adopted by the local community. In general, though: she was not mischaracterizing his opposition to busing. Biden campaigns argument is that him saying in the 70s that he opposed busing was understood then to mean he simply opposed federal-mandated busing, not all busing. Like when GOP said under Obama they oppose health reform, was obvious it meant Obamacare, not all health reform.
Joe Biden called busing a liberal train wreck. Now his stance on school integration is an issue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-called-busing-a-liberal-train-wreck-now-his-stance-on-school-integration-is-an-issue/2019/06/28/557705dc-99b3-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html?utm_term=.7e64c79ab655
snip
During the debate, Biden charged that Harris was mischaracterizing his record. Yet Bidens opposition to court-ordered busing is one of the most well-documented views of his career. In his 2007 autobiography, Promises to Keep, he called busing a liberal train wreck.
While Biden ran and won election as a liberal, Delaware voters at the time also elected anti-busing Republicans. Many white parents in the suburbs of Wilmington, the states largest city, were not willing to send their children into the city, where the schools were dominated by black students.
During the heat of the battle, in the mid-1970s, Biden called busing an asinine concept, the utility of which has never been proven to me. Ive gotten to the point where I think our only recourse to eliminate busing may be a constitutional amendment.
snip
The following year, Biden told NPR that liberal Democrats for too long had kept quiet about the matter because it would put them in the company of Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D), a leading segregationist.
Speaking to a Delaware weekly called the People Paper, Biden put it starkly: The new integration plans being offered are really just quota systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with. What it says is, In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. Thats racist!
Biden, meanwhile, led a faction of Democrats to sponsor legislation that would restrict the ability of federal courts to institute busing orders, according to a 1978 account in the Wilmington Evening Journal. During this period, he worked to sponsor anti-busing legislation with Southern senators with segregationist backgrounds.
That upset Democrats who supported busing, and some of them took Biden aside and asked how and when the racists had gotten to me, as Biden told it in his autobiography. An aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. told Biden he was being duped.
snip
Biden's track record on busing: In 1977, he called it a 'bankrupt policy'
(video)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/videos/what-joe-biden-said-about-school-busing-amendment-in-1977/vi-AADz8Hl
CNN Biden letters reveal he resisted this desegregation tactic
Senate Rejects Amendment to Restrict Judge's Authority on School Busing
(Biden was for it)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/08/24/senate-rejects-amendment-to-restrict-judges-authority-on-school-busing/6ba7d8ed-d746-46c5-8aa9-51e134ec89bc/?utm_term=.552468cca54f
here he admits to making anti-bussing acceptable (if not respectable, then reasonable) to make it okay for long-standing liberals to oppose bussing, even though at the time multiple civil rights protections were under attack
https://books.google.se/books?id=ZFQE3bLDsS4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Between+North+and+South:+Delaware,+Desegregation,+and+the+Myth+of+American&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI3vygyYzjAhXyxcQBHYohDEIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Between%20North%20and%20South%3A%20Delaware%2C%20Desegregation%2C%20and%20the%20Myth%20of%20American&f=false
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
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Like most school systems, Berkeley received HEW funding that helped to pay its school transportation
StarfishSaver
Jun 2019
#35
Interestingly, I was mistaken - Biden's amendment applied ONLY to voluntary busing
StarfishSaver
Jun 2019
#46
Yes. Fortunately, House Democrats thwarted Biden's attempt to refund the kinds of programs Harris
StarfishSaver
Jun 2019
#49
She did more than that. She misrepresented herself as "that little girl" who had benefitted
emmaverybo
Jun 2019
#33
Tom Nichols, a prominent NeverTrumper who gets quoted a lot on DU and who plans to vote
highplainsdem
Jun 2019
#24
What is this all about - are some people actually campaining to bring back forced busing?
4now
Jun 2019
#6
not in the UK at the moment, but I am in the EU now, for the summer, plus we do live now in
Celerity
Jun 2019
#37
Lol. Nice try. Bernie didn't team up with notorious racist segregationists.
Hassin Bin Sober
Jun 2019
#12
I don't think it was advisable to bring up two segregationists to make his point. NT .
emmaverybo
Jun 2019
#52
Why is everyone so down on bussing? I was bussed--to an integrated school that I loved
McCamy Taylor
Jun 2019
#23
The incidents you're referring to in the early-to mid-60s pre-dated court-ordered busing
StarfishSaver
Jul 2019
#66
Federally forced busing was not an unmitigated success. Biden was not opposed to integrated
emmaverybo
Jun 2019
#38
Sure. I don't believe racism motivated Biden's wanting the ban. I am not arguing his position,
emmaverybo
Jun 2019
#54