“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has.” https://twitter.com/postpolitics/status/1286027909908570112

This is what worries me about @JoeBiden. If your definition of racism applies to no past president besides Donald Trump, how equipped are you to combat racism?

(And please spare me your explanations that he’s better than Trump, because I know that.)

This is not a gaffe or slip of the tongue. It’s a consistent worldview, one that, by the way, is widely distributed among the American populace. But it’s an erroneous one, and a profoundly dangerous one. Racism is more than the KKK.

The threshold for presidential racism isn’t full-blown fascism. Redlining was racism. Jim Crow was racism. Mass incarceration was racism. Native policy was racism. Anti-busing was racism. Slavery, obviously, was racism. The three-fifths clause was racism. Internment was racism.

There is an urgent need to reconcile the goodness of Joe Biden‘s heart with his need for greater awareness on these issues. Having been a witness to some backchannel efforts to help him grow, I will say: I‘m not sure the campaign is especially interested in this evolution.

Everyone can get better. He is the carrier, for better or worse, of an incredibly important torch. There are some remarkable people trying to get in there and help. But if the attitude from those closest to him is, he’s cool as is, nothing will change.