President Biden referred to new Maryland Democratic governor Wes Moore, the first black governor of his state, as “boy.”
Biden made his remarks before an audience of IBEW union workers.
“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore, I tell ya,” Biden grinned. “He’s the real deal, and the boy looked like he could still play. He got some guns on him.”
Biden routinely uses the term “boy” to refer to others, as Fox News noted, having said of Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), “And Chris Coons, who has the seat I used to hold. Only difference is that he not only has a law degree, he has a divinity degree. The boy can preach.”
He has also said of former U.S. Secretary of the Army Patrick Murphy, “And my buddy, Patrick Murphy, former … Secretary of the Army as well as a former congressman. And the boy stays in shape, man. Look at him.”
Both Coons and Murphy are white.
In August 2021, Biden introduced senior adviser Cedric Richmond, who is black, this way: “I’m here with my senior adviser and boy who knows Louisiana very, very well and New Orleans, Cedric Richmond.”
Not only does Biden not sound great here, but also called Cedric Richmond "boy," something the left would lose it if he were a Republican: "I'm here with — with my senior adviser and boy who knows Louisiana very, very well — man — and — and New Orleans, Cedric Richmond." pic.twitter.com/T11qNAGJhu
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 30, 2021
In 2019, discussing having worked with segregationists in the Senate in the past, Biden stated, “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
Criticized for his remarks, Biden said, “To the extent that anybody thought that I meant something different, that is not what I intended it. It’d be wrong for anybody to intend that.”
But New Jersey Democrat Sen. Cory Booker called on Biden to apologize. “This is about him invoking a terrible power dynamic that he showed a lack of understanding or insensitivity to by invoking this idea that he was called ‘son’ by white segregationists who, yeah, they see in him their son,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Booker added on CNN, “For his posture to be, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, you should apologize, I’m not a racist,’ is so insulting and so missing the larger point that he should not have to have explained to him, that this is not a lesson that someone who is running for president of the united states should have to be given.”
“These are the kind of things that do cause hurt and harm,” Booker added.