Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden sought to clarify comments he made suggested the African American community was not diverse after backlash over the remark, Politico reports.
Biden made the comment during an interview with NPR reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro that was hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists.
"Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things," Biden said. "You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration than you do in Arizona. So it's a very diverse community."
The comments were in response to a question about whether Biden would engage with Cuba and on different immigration views among Cuban and Venezuelan Americans.
Biden steps on campaign statement:
"If you look at the full video and transcript, it’s clear that Vice President Biden was referring to diversity of attitudes among Latinos from different Latin American countries," Biden adviser Symone Sanders said in a statement. "The video that is circulating is conveniently cut to make this about racial diversity but that’s not the case.”
Moments after the comment, Biden again compared Latino and Black Americans during a virtual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference.
"We can build a new administration that reflects the full diversity of our nation. The full diversity of the Latino communities," Biden said. "Now when I mean full diversity, unlike African American community, many other communities, you're from everywhere. From Europe. From the tip of South America, all the way to our border and Mexico and in the Caribbean. And different backgrounds, different ethnicities, but all Latinos."
Biden tries to clarify:
“In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith — not by identity, not on issues, not at all,“ Biden wrote on Twitter. “Throughout my career I‘ve witnessed the diversity of thought, background, and sentiment within the African American community. It‘s this diversity that makes our workplaces, communities, and country a better place.“
“My commitment to you is this: I will always listen, I will never stop fighting for the African American community and I will never stop fighting for a more equitable future.“
