Loading ...Moderator Lindsay Davis began by referencing comments Biden made “some 40 years ago”. She said:
In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, ‘I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today for sins of my own generation and I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.’
“But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?” she asked the candidate.
“Look, there is institutional segregation in this country and from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that,” Biden responded. “When you talk about education, I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the title one schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year, give every single teacher a raise to get out of the $60,000 level.”
“I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher,” Biden went on. “They have every problem coming to them. We gotta make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four and five year olds go to schools, not daycare, school. We bring social workers into homes to help them deal with how to raise children. It’s not just that they don’t want to help, they don’t quite know what to do.”
“Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night,” he added.