Here’s why black Americans were mad at Biden’s comment — even if they’d say the same thing themselves

On May 22, in a cringe-worthy exchange with Charlamagne tha God on the popular radio show “The Breakfast Club,” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you are for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Advisers from the Biden campaign attempted to walk back the comment, suggesting it was made in jest. Biden apologized.

Biden’s comments reflect a common misunderstanding within both political parties about the role that white Americans play in maintaining black support for the Democratic Party. In the book “Steadfast Democrats,” two of us, Ismail White and Chryl Laird, offer insight into how Biden could draw the ire of the same black Americans whose Super Tuesday votes put him in a position to win the Democratic Party nomination for president.

We find that black social connections are key in maintaining blacks’ commitment to the Democratic Party. To most effectively leverage political strength as a minority group, black Americans have come to prioritize group solidarity in party politics. This partisan loyalty is maintained through a process we call “racialized social constraint,” whereby support for the Democratic Party is understood as just something you do as a black person, an expectation of political behavior meant to empower the racial group.

If someone attempts to defect from this group norm, other black Americans enforce group unity by sanctioning the defector. They might denigrate them aloud or in print, questioning someone’s commitment to or standing within the racial group by calling them an Uncle Tom, a sellout, or something similar. These sanctions can sound a lot like Biden’s comments, phrased as, “If you are for Trump, then you ain’t black.” For those who value their standing within black social networks, such social sanctions can powerfully constrain behavior.