Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
- Former Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged that he has benefited from being white during a CNN town on Thursday night.
- “I’ve benefited just because I don’t have to go through what my Black brothers and sisters have had to go through,” Biden told host Anderson Cooper.
- Biden also contrasted his working-class background to President Donald Trump’s wealthy upbringing.
- The veteran reporter Bob Woodward asked Trump whether he’s experienced white privilege, and the president replied, “No, I don’t feel that at all.”
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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday acknowledged that white privilege has worked in his favor.
“I’ve benefited just because I don’t have to go through what my Black brothers and sisters have had to go through,” Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during a drive-in town hall at PNC Field in Moosic, Pennsylvania.
White privilege refers to the societal advantages that white people can reap because of their race. This emerged as a hot-button issue as protests over racial injustice and police brutality swept the nation following the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
On June 19, the veteran journalist Bob Woodward asked Trump about being white in the United States, and was mocked for it.
“We share one thing in common: We’re white, privileged,” Woodward told Trump, according to audio recordings and Woodward’s new book, “Rage.”
"Do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave, to a certain extent, as it put me and I think lots of white, privileged people in a cave? And that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain particularly Black people feel in this country?" Woodward asked.
"No," Trump replied. "You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don't feel that at all."
—Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) September 18, 2020
For his part, Biden answered Cooper's question, but then pivoted to comparing his own working-class youth in Pennsylvania with Trump's upbringing in New York City.
"Growing up here in Scranton, we're used to guys to who look down their nose at us," Biden said. "Look at us and think that we don't, we're not equivalent to them. If you didn't have a college degree, you must be stupid."
He added: "Guys like me were the first in my family to go to college. We are as good as anybody else. And guys like Trump, who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited, are the people I've always had a problem with. Not the people who are busting their neck."
Biden graduated with his bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware and later went to Syracuse University College of Law. He and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris are the first candidates on the Democratic ticket in more than 35 years who did not attend Ivy League colleges — a fact Biden highlighted on Thursday.
"Who the hell makes you think I have to have an Ivy league degree to be president?" Biden said, earning applause from the audience.
Trump, on the other hand, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, though his credentials came under scrutiny earlier this year when his niece, Mary Trump, claimed that he paid someone to take his entrance exam in his stead.
"I really do view this campaign as between Scranton and Park Avenue," Biden said. "All Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street."