The latest in President Joe Biden‘s unfortunate and ongoing series of racially tinged gaffes continued Wednesday in less than spectacular fashion when he made an off-color remark about Maryland’s new governor, the first Black person ever elected to that position.
Biden’s comments in question were fleeting and seemingly off-the-cuff during a speech about the state of the economy he gave to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 in Maryland on Wednesday. The president specifically laid out his plans to cut the national deficit by $2 trillion by 2033.
While the focus should have been on Biden’s ambitious economic agenda during a time of historic inflation, much of the resulting coverage of the speech zeroed in on one word in particular: “boy.”
That was how Biden referred to Gov. Wes Moore during what was likely intended to be glowing commentary about Maryland’s newly elected chief executive officer.
Harkening back to Moore’s days playing football as a student-athlete while attending John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Biden marveled over the governor’s physical shape.
“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore, I tell ya,” Biden said to a rousing round of applause that prompted the president to also clap. “He’s the real deal. The boy looks like he could still play.”
Oof.
Biden capped off those quick comments by adding, “he’s got some guns on him,” an apparent reference to Moore’s biceps.
In case there is any confusion, Moore is a 44-year-old grown man.
The phrase “the boy” is a popular third-person parlance in hip-hop circles for an off-handed reference to one’s self, not to others. Drake and Jay Z are among those who popularized the phrase when rapping about themselves. This is clearly not what Biden was going for on Wednesday.
Biden’s words were quickly dissected in a campaign led by right-wing media to paint Biden’s words as racist by rhetorically…
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