There are people on both the left and the right who are trying to make former vice president Joe Biden out to be both a creeper and a racist. I don't actually take either of those accusations that seriously, despite my having poked fun at Creepy Uncle Joe on numerous occasions. The slew of photos showing Biden getting uncomfortably close to many different women could simply indicate that the man is the product of a certain era, and his background makes him out of step with the current look-but-never-touch #MeToo Zeitgeist. This doesn't mean that women should take Biden's disregard for personal space in stride, but it does mean that it's at least possible that Biden simply doesn't know what effect he's having on people. That said, the photographic evidence about Biden will make for some marvelous and hilarious campaign ads next year, even if the explanation for his behavior turns out to be perfectly innocent: perception is greater than reality, as media-guy Donald Trump knows all too well. As for Biden's supposed racism: he's made some tasteless gaffes, including one only a couple days ago in which he declared that poor kids are just as smart and talented as white kids (d'oh!). But does Biden have a history of trumpeting white superiority, or a history of refusing to work with non-whites? I don't think so. After all, he served eight more-or-less harmonious years with Barack Obama. So that narrative also has no teeth.
Biden was just involved in an incident in which he supposedly "grabbed" a woman's arm after she questioned him on how many genders he thought there were. If you watch the video, you'll see that Biden's hand does indeed close around his questioner's upper arm, but was he actually grabbing it? True: with the legal definition of assault being as vague as "unwanted touching," what Biden did could count as assault. The woman turns out to be a conservative staffer for Turning Point USA. We'll see whether she presses charges.
ADDENDUM: from the comments to the above-linked post: "Remember when [CNN reporter Jim] Acosta was touched by a girl, and the meltdown he had?" That's a fair point.
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