In Buffalo, Joe Biden Challenged an Idea: The Idea of White Supremacy

Biden in Buffalo; White House YoutTube channnel

On May 17, 2022, President Joe Biden spoke at the Delavan Grider Community Center in Buffalo, New York, to commemorate the lives of the recent mass shooting in Buffalo that left ten innocent people dead and three wounded. The suspected shooter had been posting virulent white supremacist messaging. It appears that he traveled to Buffalo for the purpose of killing African Americans. After commemorating the victims, Biden spoke against the ideology of white supremacy. Readers of this blog know that ceremonial and commemorative speeches often advocate policies. For example, we might have expected Biden to speak out in favor of gun control. But he did not advocate a policy. Instead, he spoke about ideas—the pernicious ideas that drive the white supremacy movement.

Biden did, indeed, commemorate the victims’ lives. His main thrust, however, was to condemn the doctrine of white supremacy. This may be the key issue in current American public life, and it was high time for the president to address it forthrightly and forcefully. Biden did so during this speech. The United states’ conservative movement has become increasingly aggressive in pursuing specifically racial positions. The shooting marked the occasion when Biden ripped off the veneer that the United States can accept, compromise with, or tolerate white supremacy.

Do we realize how radical it was for Biden to repudiate white supremacy? For, as recently as my youth, large parts of the United States made it illegal for African Americans to attend quality schools, obtain home loans, or spend the night in public hotels. In today's post, I point out that Biden’s presidency arises from the fight for racial justice. Upcoming posts will examine previous rhetoric of white supremacy, so we can perceive how deeply that foul doctrine lies in American heritage. In other words, let's start with the present and work back to the past. Conservatives today no longer fear slave revolts, but the nation's diversification continues to trouble them. This sometimes leads white conservatives to fear that dark-skin people will dominate the United States. Thus, Biden talked about white replacement theory.


White Replacement?

What is white replacement? A number of leading conservatives, notably Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, have espoused the doctrine that immigration and social change endanger American culture. The implication—sometimes spoken and sometimes implied—is that American culture cannot survive if non-white people come to dominate. Biden, a white man himself, reminded his audience that pro-Donald Trump marchers had advocated white replacement doctrine:

“We heard the chants, ‘You will not replace us,’ in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

Continuing, Biden revealed that he ran for President precisely to oppose white supremacy:

“I wasn’t going to run, as the Senator knows, again for President. But when I saw those people coming out of the woods — of the fields of — in Virginia, in Charlottesville, carrying torches, shouting ‘You will not replace us,’ accompanied by white supremacists and carrying Nazi banners — that’s when I said, ‘No.’ ‘No.’”

“White Supremacy Is Poison”

Indeed, Biden called white supremacy a “poison.” A poison, we must remember, is always dangerous. A poison seeps through the body until it kills the host. A poison might be unseen until it is too late. Poison is a powerful metaphor:

“White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison — (applause) — running through — it really is — running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes.”

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Does White Supremacy Belong in America?

Using the power of the presidency—the bully pulpit of which Theodore Roosevelt spoke—Biden offered a simple solution. His solution was to wipe out the ideology. This is much different from the Democratic Party's usual tendency to offer technical, bureaucratic solutions. As the great conservative writer Richard Weaver said, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Policy alone, Biden implied, could not cure the United States’ problems. For the problem was not specific policy, but the ideology itself:

“No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. (Applause.) None.”

Morally, Biden is obviously right. Even diehard white supremacists often deny that they believe in white supremacy. To be sure, maverick Republican Liz Cheney accused her fellow Republicans of enabling white supremacy and urged them to stop. Yet, the ultra-conservative Cheney is a maverick only because she displays a semblance of integrity.

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American politicians historically try to walk on a middle track to attract as many voters as possible. In contrast, unable or unwilling to admit that the white supremacist movement has any merit, Biden came down forcefully to wipe out that ideology. Yes, ideas have consequences. Will Biden’s relatively calm voice outweigh the fear-mongering, hate-filled, shrieking nonsense on cable news and talk radio?