Biden transcriptions compared, from audio tape and as it appears in NYO article

[BurtWorm]

They are different. Here is the quote that started the buzz:

http://www.observer.com/20070205/20070205_Jason_Horowitz_politics_newsstory1.asp

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," he said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."


And here is the audio, followed by a verbatim transcript:


http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=463858485

Biden: I mean, you got the first, sorta, mainstream African-American.

Horowitz <the Observer writer>: Yeah.

Biden: Who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.

<Transcription courtesy of The Polical Animal>



The first version seems to link "first mainstream African-American" with the "articulate, bright, clean, nice-looking," as though Biden meant that no African-American candidate for president before Obama had any of those attributes or all of them at once. But the actual audio implies a separation between the two clauses, captured by the period and the interjected "Yeah" from Horowitz in the second, more accurate version. The meaning between the two versions is different. In the second, Biden is clearly praising Obama in the second part, perhaps even apart from his being African-American, as a "storybook" candidate, if you will (the way John Kennedy was a storybook candidate, perhaps?).

And yet, so many of those words are charged with the not-so-secret history of race in American politics. The first troublesome word is, in fact, "first," made doubly problematic when hitched to "mainstream." There is still no way around the fact that Biden is just plain wrong about Obama's being the first African-American candidate for president. But is Obama even the "first *mainstream* African-American" candidate for president? And what does Biden *really* mean by "mainstream African-American?" Does he consider Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton *non*-mainstream? If so, why does he think that?

I know I'm not posing any new questions, but that is the point of the comparison. The audio and its transcription mitigate the tone of Biden's language. But the question of the racism inherent in it just gets driven deeper into the shadows. It's still there. It won't just go away.

[BurtWorm]

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