Kerri Evelyn Harris Says What No Other Delaware Democrat Dares

Kerri Evelyn Harris joined scores of black politicians in condemning Joe Biden’s inarticulate-at-best remarks about getting along with segregationist senators early in his career. She told the Huffington Post,

“That comment really took me back. It shows how removed he is at this moment of rising racial tensions that are coming back not unlike during the times that he is referring to. People are fearful. I would hope that he comes out and apologizes. I would hope that he steps back and realizes that there is much more that we have to do to create changes in this country besides beating Trump.”

Harris said she feels compelled to speak up in part because of her multiracial heritage. Her mother, who is white, risked her life registering black people to vote in the South in the 1960s and subsequently married a black man at a time when interracial marriage was uncommon.

“The same way there were allies then, our allies are themselves concerned for standing up for people of color,” Harris said. “They are even more sensitive to the fact of these off-handed quips of ‘He didn’t call me boy, he called me son.’ They are more conscious of the people who were willing to stand on the front lines of the civil rights movement and truly take a stand.”

Perhaps more significantly, while Harris has not endorsed anyone in the 2020 primary, she doesn’t seem too keen on Biden.

“We cannot take a chance with somebody who repeatedly, repeatedly keeps making mistakes and then comes back to apologize just to go back and make another mistake ― whether it’s with abortion or race or gender or whatever it is, crime bill,” she said. “All of these things have had lasting impacts. We need to be aware of it and not just make excuses for where we were in the past.”