July 8, 2019

Joe Biden said words resembling an apology for having (1) expressed pride in being able to work with racist monsters like Senators Eastland of Mississippi and Talmadge of Georgia in the 1970s and (2) being able to work with them on matters of race, like busing to desegregate schools some two decades after it was ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States.

George Will continued his perpetual pompous windbag streak by appearing on Stephanie Ruhle's show to shame Biden for being pressured into sort of doing the actual right thing.

WILL: Well, once you embark on the full grovel tour of apologies, it's very hard to know where it will stop. He's now today a man with his ear firmly on the ground but as Winston Churchill said it's very difficult to look up to someone in that position. When he came to the Congress of the United States, when he came to the Senate, the Senate was run by conservative Southern Democrats. McClellan of Arkansas, Stennis and Eastland of Mississippi, Sparkland of Alabama, Russell of Georgia, et cetera. He has a good case to make that he could not have functioned unless he did business with these chairmen. But it's very difficult to see where he stops now as he's done an about-face on Hyde amendment, crime bill, bussing, for goodness sake. I can't think of a policy in the last 50 years more broadly disliked than forced bussing to achieve racial balance in schools. And now he's even apologizing for his opposition to that. It's astonishing.

Actually, George, what's astonishing is that you speak so derisively of a person "evolving" on matters of abortion rights for women, for-profit random-yet-targeted incarceration of innocent Black youth, and *checks notes* BUSING? Wait, you're still against BUSING, George???

Thankfully, Eddie Glaude, Jr. was there to have the final word on that topic.

GLAUDE: The only thing about issue of busing, it was disliked because a lot of white people in this country did not want Black kids to go school with them. So there was some Black folk who did not to send their kids into dens of hatred. We keep talking about the busing issue as if it didn't work because busing, something inherent in the policy itself was wrong. What happened, what was clear, what happened in Boston, what happened in Pontiac, what happened all around the country was that white communities did not want to integrate their schools. When we saw busing work in places like Charlotte, we saw the community come together and make a decision that they wanted to educate their kids. Their public school system would collapse if they continued this active resistance. But in all other places the reason why busing did not work is because white people did not want their kids go to school with Black people. Period.

It won't make a bit of difference to imperious, pretentious blowhards like George Will. He likely believes Glaude doesn't know what he's talking about regarding matters of race, what with being "a Black" and all. But at least for the rest of us who know better, and for those listeners who don't quite know their history as well as the wonks do, it was a good reminder that the reason busing was unpopular was because of RACISM.

Do remember: racism is a problem created by white people, and it is with white people that the responsibility lies to fix it.

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