Joe Biden’s missing 'I' in his talk of 'white man’s culture'

On Tuesday night, former vice president and maybe 2020 Democratic candidate, Joe Biden offered a sort-of apology and a reflection on why he had failed to do more to stand up for Anita Hill almost thirty years earlier. Condemning “a white man’s culture” and calling for broad cultural change, Biden’s forceful remarks generated plenty of media attention and criticism for not dealing more directly with his role and clear ability to have “done something” as the then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Biden’s words, aside from rehashing his own culpability, also put front and center the broader cultural reckoning facing the country about our own past — a reckoning that reverberates quite clearly with Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again” chock-full of nostalgia for days that were far worse for large portions of the country.

Biden’s remarks hinted at but didn’t quite capture something that Americana country star Jason Isbell wrote about in his haunting song “White Man’s World.” He provides an illustrative rendering of what, I would hope, had been Biden’s goal to convey to his audience:

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