Biden sparks backlash after telling audience member at White House event for Eid-al-Fitr
News Desk :
Joe Biden sparked backlash after telling a White House attendee to ‘hush up, boy’, during an event celebrating Islamic holiday Eid-al-Fitr.
The awkward exchange came as the audience member, who is believed to be a Muslim man, interrupted the president as he marked the occasion before a packed crowd.
‘You want to come and make a speech,’ Biden shouted after he began being berated him from the audience, reports Dailymail.
‘Hush up, boy,’ he continued in a mimicked Southern drawl, a remark which was met with laughter from the other attendees.
The gaffe quickly sparked backlash due to the historic connotations behind the word ‘boy’, which has been used as a racist slur against black people.
Biden’s response was shared by Texas state delegate Sarah Fields, who slammed the president following the remarks and claimed the individual was a servicemember.
‘Imagine if another president referred to someone as “boy”‘, she said. ‘Especially someone in our armed forces’.
The incident was also condemned by RNC Research, which is managed by the Republican National Committee. The group claimed the back-and-forth kicked off after the audience member told him the first and only Muslim federal judge was in attendance.
‘Is Biden a racist? You tell us’, the organization added in a follow-up tweet, accompanied by a video showing the president’s various gaffes.
Biden has faced similar controversy in recent years after making other racially-charged comments, including telling rapper Charlamagne tha God: ‘If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’.
Controversy at the event comes after New Jersey’s Muslim mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he was ‘baffled’ after being blocked entrance to the celebration by the White House Secret Service.
Shortly before he was set to arrive at the White House for the Eid-al-Fitr event, Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he received a call from the White House stating that he had not been cleared for entry by the Secret Service and could not attend.
He said the White House official did not explain why the Secret Service had blocked his entry.’
It left me baffled, shocked and disappointed,’ Khairullah said. ‘It’s not a matter of I didn’t get to go to a party. It’s why I did not go. And it’s a list that has targeted me because of my identity. And I don’t think the highest office in the United States should be down with such profiling.’
