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On the night of Saturday, September 23, President Joe Biden was delivering a speech at the Congressional Black Caucus’ 52nd Annual Legislative Conference in Washington D.C. During the speech, he called rapper, actor, songwriter, and record producer LL Cool J “the great artist of our time representing the groundbreaking legacy of hip-hop in America.”
In addition, he also called the 55-year-old a “boy,” noting that his biceps are bigger than his thighs. Besides LL Cool J, Joe Biden also mentioned the name of the rapper, DJ, and entrepreneur MC Lyte, and thanked her for her contribution to hip-hop as well.
As soon as the speech surfaced on the internet, social media users were left unimpressed with President Biden, with many putting him under ridicule for using the term “boy” which is often regarded as a racial epithet.
“I think his mind is stuck in the 60s”: President Joe Biden faces online mockery for calling LL Cool J “a boy”
The 52nd Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus happened on Saturday night in Washington D.C. There, rappers LL Cool J (whose real name is James Todd Smith) and MC Lyte (whose real name is Lana Michele Moorer) were honored with the prestigious Phoenix Awards for their musical contributions to the field of hip-hop.
President Joe Biden was present at the meeting as well. While delivering a speech at the annual awards dinner, he said that both LL Cool J and MC Lyte were two of the greatest hip-hop artists in the USA. He also mispronounced the former’s name as LL J Cool J. He then continued:
“By the way, that boy’s got, uhh, the man’s got biceps bigger than my thighs. I think he’s…”
Interestingly, he did not wait to finish his sentence and directly moved on to acknowledging MC Lyte, saying “Both of you, thank you.”
While the live audience laughed and applauded the President’s gaffe, netizens did not seem to enjoy it. Instead, they called him out for mispronouncing the name of LL Cool J and addressing him as a “boy” which is often deemed racist to call a grown black man.
Since Biden’s speech became viral on X (formerly Twitter), Twitteratti has been ridiculing him. Here are some of the reactions in this regard.
This is not President Biden's first use of the term “boy” to refer to African Americans. In fact, earlier this year, he used the word to refer to Wes Moore, Maryland’s first black governor.
Not only that, but he also often uses the term “boy” to refer to other younger politicians. In this regard, Senator Cory Booker, who is a Democratic U.S. representative for New Jersey rebuked him during the last presidential campaign (in 2019) saying that Joe Biden should not joke about calling anyone, especially black men, “boys,” after the latter used the term to describe segregationist senators.
Two days prior to his speech at the Congressional Black Caucus’ 52nd Annual Legislative Conference, the President also misspoke at the 46th annual gala of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he ended his speech by addressing people of the Congressional Black Caucus, which also earned him backlash online.
