TOP
Bakari Sellers
Chapters
The FRONTLINE Interviews
Bakari Sellers
Political Analyst, CNN
Bakari Sellers is a political analyst for CNN. He served as a representative in the South Carolina Legislature and is the author of the memoir My Vanishing Country.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on July 16, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview appears in:
Text Interview:
Highlight text to share it
Biden and Busing
Let’s talk about first Kamala Harris’ debate. ...During that debate back in June, she kind of went at him for the busing stance.So I wanted to get from you what you thought of that moment and the way that Joe Biden reacted to it.What was your assessment of that?
Well, understanding that I am somebody who’s actually debated on a stage for lieutenant governor, I’ve run for public office, run for statewide office in South Carolina, I know the sport of politics.And watching Kamala Harris debate Joe Biden and everyone else that night, she was more than formidable.I mean, she won that debate.She was head and shoulders better than any debater on the stage.I think that if anyone looks back at the Democratic field and asks themselves who was the best debater that we had, you understand that to be Kamala Harris. …
So that moment was powerful because he didn’t seem to have a response, that it’s an issue that’s an important one to understand.Explain his reaction and why it’s a relevant question for Joe Biden.
Well, I mean, it’s the Mike Tyson age-old saying: What happens when you—everybody has a plan until you get punched in the jaw, right?And so he got punched in the jaw that night.I thought it was fair game.I didn’t think it was disrespectful or rude.I thought it was the sport of politic.And not only that, but, you know, Joe Biden’s record is one that’s extremely long.Joe Biden’s record is one that’s extensive.It’s one that, you know, you have to, sometimes unfairly, judge Joe Biden through the lens of 2020, you know.
For many of us in South Carolina, we understand the relationships with individuals like [Sen.] Strom Thurmond, etc.For the nation in 2020, that’s something that’s really frowned upon and looked upon through a lens that may not be fair for the era that they grew up in.The same with busing.And one of the things that I must say is, even my good friend David Axelrod, I think many people were unfair in their criticism of Kamala Harris for going after Joe Biden during that moment about busing during that timeframe.Joe Biden was on the wrong side of history at that time.Regardless of what Kamala Harris thinks about busing today, Joe Biden was on the wrong side of history at that moment.And Black folk are sophisticated, and we can be critical of Joe Biden and still work like hell to get him elected.And I don’t see anything wrong with those—with those propositions.
So from ’75 to ’82, he promoted dozens of bills that limited feds from mandating busing.So just finish that thought off that you just said.How do we, with 2020 eyes, how do we evaluate that at this point?
I mean, with 2020 eyes you have to be fair.And the only thing—and I think Joe Biden’s major issue with the—this new heightened scrutiny over elected officials being authentic, you know, you’re not going to find anybody who hates Donald Trump more than me.But Donald Trump has ushered in one new, refreshing characteristic, although it’s a complete fraud when he perpetrates it, but it’s being authentic.And I would appreciate Joe Biden actually acknowledging his faults for being on the wrong side of history for many of those episodes, many of the things, many of the bills that he passed, many of the stances that he pushed for, acknowledging he was wrong, and looking back, advocating and telling us how he would do better today, how he, through legislation and policy, would help unravel many of the wrongs that he was a part of.
I think there’s nothing wrong with maturation and growth, but there’s something about 70-year-old white men and getting them to change and acknowledge fault and failures.So we’ll have to see if that ever happens.
The 1994 Crime Bill
So he boasted that his name was on every major crime bill from ’76 to ’94.How should that be viewed at this point?
… So you know, for me, it actually started in 1982 with the civil asset forfeiture bill that he worked on with Strom Thurmond, Jr.You go through ’82, ’84, I believe, and then you get to the ’94 crime bill, etc.What you see is that Joe Biden, through not his fault alone, because when you look at the totality and the context through which these bills were passed, you realize that the NAACP and some other civil rights organizations were on the side of this.You realize that the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus], some Black pastors, etc., were on his side of this piece of legislation.
But even with that, with these pieces of legislation, even with that, again, you come down on the fact that Joe Biden and the CBC were wrong.I even criticize [Rep.] Jim Clyburn with no hesitation.The ’94 crime bill was a bad bill.There’s nothing good that comes from taking a generation of Black men away from their family.There’s nothing good that comes from that.And even when you draw up legislation—and take it from someone who’s a formerly elected official—when you draw up legislation, even with some of the best intent, you can still have really, really bad consequences.And for no one to acknowledge those consequences is a failure on the part of them all.
The ’94 bill and also the ’84 and ’86 bills created the situation of mass incarceration, created havoc in Black communities.Why did they misunderstand the consequences?Or when did they figure out what the consequences were?And how should that be viewed?
I think they figured out the consequences about a generation later, which was a generation too late.You know, you had penalties in this bill which treated crack versus cocaine in grossly disproportionate fashion.And you know, white boys using coke on—in the Hamptons get fines; Black guys selling crack for, you know, lesser amounts without a criminal record get put away for the majority of their life.There’s really no excuse for the failure in the implementation of this bill.There’s no excuse for this bill.
And the way that it should be treated is, it should be treated as a failure.And whenever you have failures in your political career or your life, you have to do everything you can to rectify and reconcile those things.There has been no level of atonement from Joe Biden.There’s been no level of atonement from the Congressional Black Caucus and those people who voted for that bill.
So what we’re doing in this 2020 election is having faith.And faith is such a funny, a funny word, to have faith in another man that he will remedy those wrongs, even without having the necessary atonement for those wrongs.
… We talked to Congressman Clyburn, and he supported the ’94 bill.He said: “I voted for it, too.You’ve got to understand that the Republicans came in, and they took a lot of the good stuff out.And yes, there were indeed unintended consequences, but that was because of the fact that there was a real problem with crime back then, and they were looking for anything that would help.”What’s the response to that defense?
Well, Jim Clyburn’s wrong, too.Look, I can’t be out here calling out Republicans for their malfeasance and their intellectual dishonesty and their shortsighted vision and refuse to call out Democrats like Jim or the vice president of the United States, who I’m voting for to be president of the United States.What they did was—was—it was just—the ’94 crime bill is one of the worst pieces of legislation in the history of the United States of America.And when you talk about a country that has a history as ours with racial violence perpetrated through statutory lenses, and I can still say that and be very firm in that statement, then there needs to be some acknowledgement thereof.
I think that the problem that many of us have is not that they passed the ’94 crime bill; it’s that there is a failure amongst gentlemen of a certain age—I dare not call them old—to acknowledge their failures.
The Evolution of Joe Biden
Do you think Joe Biden has evolved on these issues?
I think we’re at the point now where I don’t care if Joe Biden has evolved on these issues, and that’s the tragedy of where we are in this country.I would appreciate the evolution of Joe Biden.I would appreciate the evolution of Jim Clyburn, somebody who is a resident of this district.But at this point, I really don’t care about their evolution because this vote is a vote for literally our lives.Our lives depend on this vote in November, and so I will allow somebody or a power higher than I to adjudicate his evolution.
But by saying that, do you think that he will take bold criminal justice actions to reverse the problem of systemic racism?
I don’t think anyone can really look at Joe Biden and say that Joe Biden alone or the current leadership we have alone will eradicate systemic racism.And let me be extremely clear why I say that.
Democrats and Republicans alike both have this really poor theory, political theory that rising tides lift all boats.And Joe Biden’s Black agenda, Jim Clyburn’s Black agenda—we keep going back to Jim, but this is kind of his, you know, they’re coupled together now—the failure in which stems from a very stale way in which you look at the political process.As long as Joe Biden believes that rising tides lift all boats, as long as Joe Biden continues to put forth race-neutral policies to effectuate race-specific problems, nothing will ever change.You cannot have a race-neutral policy when we have race-specific problems in this country.And Joe Biden doesn’t seem to necessarily understand that, which is fine, because he’s light years better than the alternative.
The answer is what?If you had his ear, and you do have his ear—you’re on the DNC advisory board, for some of these issues, when it comes to police and such—what is your advice to Joe Biden?
… If Joe Biden were here today I would say, you know, Mr. Vice President, that you have to have race-specific solutions to these problems, period.There’s no—there’s no such thing as “a rising tide lifts all boats.”The damage that was done through the ’94 crime bill means that you have to direct resources to these communities, these Black and brown communities that were negatively affected by what you thought was a good piece of legislation then.
I would also advise the vice president to—it’s very, very difficult for us to get to a position of forgiveness without any atonement.And the biggest problem that we have in this country is that we have a empathy deficit.But even more importantly, Black folk always have to forgive.And there are a lot of Black people in this country, a lot of young Black people, who are not in a position or a willingness to forgive Joe Biden.And he has to be willing, before he thinks or anyone around him thinks that because he’s running against Donald Trump that forgiveness will rain down like manna from heaven, he actually has to apologize and acknowledge his failures.
Biden and the Black Vote
But I mean, the Black vote is tremendously important to Biden and to the Democratic Party.And, you know, you look at the primaries, and he was in a bad position in the early primaries, but South Carolina turned it around.The Black vote in South Carolina was essential to his success.Do you think that if you’re Black in America, can you trust Joe Biden to do the necessary steps that we certainly are dealing with, and some of the white population is understanding a little bit better because the debate is happening on the streets of America?Is he—is he—is it possible for Joe Biden to accomplish some of the things that is called for, especially because of that support of the Black population in America?
So I think the question is wrong, with all due respect.I don’t think that Black folk in this country are voting for Joe Biden to be a panacea.We’re not voting for him to come in and be an avenger or a superhero.What we are voting for him to do is root out the racism we have in the White House, period.Joe Biden has a four-year goal, which is to stop cancer from spreading through this United States of America, the cancer known as racism and white supremacy as it emanates from 1600 Pennsylvania.That’s it.You know, reversing that, creating new programs, being bold and visionary, all of those things are gravy.But, you know, my father, my mother, they’re the people of a generation who fought for all the progress, which is why I’m able to sit here today before this camera.They’re not voting for Joe Biden to be a change agent.I don’t think anybody’s doing that.We are voting for Joe Biden to stop the bleeding.
Sellers’ Family Story
What happened to your dad and the arrest, being shot in that demonstration, what does it say—what do you learn from that experience, from your own family’s experience about these issues?
You know, I think I’m in a unique position because I’m truly a child of the movement, and I value the progress we’ve made in this country.I was birthed understanding injustice.When your father goes to prison for rioting, and he’s the first and only one one-man riot in the history of this country when your father is shot, when your sister is born without her father being there because he’s in prison, it informs your beliefs.
But even more importantly, I remember how, or learned how my father pushed LBJ to be that much better.I remember how Stokely Carmichael talked about Black Power, but not the Black Power that evokes fear amongst white people, but the Black Power that talks about self-sufficiency, that talks about economic power, that talks about political power, being able to take care of your own community, a lot like Black Lives Matter.
And so, when I look at my father, the biggest tragedy and heartache I have is that he’s 75 and I’m 35, and with the likes of even many of the same Democratic elected officials, we still have many of the same problems.
The Choice Between Biden and Trump
… How do you judge Biden?One of the major things we’re looking at is how each of them deals with crises, because we’re certainly in several large crises at the moment, and God knows what happens next.How do you judge him as—his ability to lead this country in the never-ending crises that we seem to be dealing with?
So politics is sport, and I can only judge by Biden against his opponent.I don’t have to judge Biden throughout the annals of history.I’m not judging Biden against JFK or Barack Obama.I’m judging Joe Biden against Donald Trump.And Black folk have two pandemics that they’re living through.One is state-sanctioned violence that we see at the hands of law enforcement; the other is this coronavirus that’s killing Black folk at disproportionate rates.If the question is, will he handle those two pandemics and issues better than Donald Trump, the answer is hell, yeah.
The name of this film is The Choice 2020.So how—what type of choice is Joe Biden for taking on this leadership role?
For me, it’s not a choice.I mean, this is—this election is the antithesis of what I tell people politics is, because I’m always somebody who tells you that you cannot just run and tell people how bad your opponent is.That’s never good politics.This is the one example that proves—that disproves that theory.This is the antithesis.
And so I’m working extremely hard focusing on one group of people to get Joe Biden over the hump.I’m focused between now and November on Black men, to make sure they understand the importance; to make sure that they come out; to make sure that somebody’s talking to them; to make sure somebody’s listening to them; and to soothe their fears or their concerns or their misconceptions about Joe Biden or the democratic process because, at the end of the day, I think most people will come down along the same lines.And this choice 2020 is that my children don’t deserve to grow up in a country where Donald Trump is president of the United States.
… The film is called The Choice 2020.The choice is between these two guys, that’s all that’s on—
I actually don’t agree with that.So I think so in my—I don’t mean to disrupt the thesis or the theory of the film.However, in 2016, what we saw was that we thought there was a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and a lot of people chose the couch.There were 4 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 who did not show up in 2016.Some of that had to do with voter suppression; the rest of that had to do with the fact that we had two of the most unpopular candidates in the history of this country.
And so this choice isn’t just between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton—I mean, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, excuse me.This choice is between Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the couch.And Joe Biden has to do everything he can do to make sure that people come out and vote for him, and he has to give them a reason to do so.I think that—and I’m unashamed and unabashed in saying that Joe Biden is running against George Wallace 2.0, somebody who embodies white supremacy; somebody who is a racist; somebody who allows individuals, like in Charlottesville, to chant “Jews shall not replace us,” to say [the N-word] out loud without wearing hoods or masks.They find that comfort in Donald Trump.
And so for me very personally, I think that Joe Biden is running against what America was.… So Joe Biden is 77 years old, and you know, he is my choice.He’s my horse.And I have to believe in a 77-year-old white man to take us to the promised land to beat back white supremacy, to beat back racism.But he’s my hope, and he’s my faith.That’s a lot of pressure.But at the end of the day, Nov. 3, I hope we’re successful.
Working with Segregationists
One last thing that we didn’t cover but you commented on a little bit was that when he came to the Senate he worked with … segregationists, and you talked a little bit about understanding that.And he gets some grief about that as well.I mean, he worked on the crime bills; he worked on the anti-busing bills with that group of white Southern senators.How do we view that at this point?
So there are a couple of things.I look at it—I think that politics is more nuanced than people want to make it on Twitter, and it’s very hard to adjudicate or judge Joe Biden’s record on Twitter, which we try to do.Working with Southern segregationists during that time is appropriate because there were a lot of them there, and in order to pass any legislation, you had to do so.
I worked with people in the state house who did not want to take the Confederate flag down.I call them my friends today.These are individuals I had to work with who were on the wrong side of history.I acknowledge that.I believe that they acknowledge that now.But that was still the political process.
I think that we’ve gotten to this place where we can’t talk across party lines.I think we got into this place—and this is the benefit, and this is the—this is one of the blessings of Joe Biden.He comes from an age where it was OK to talk to people who didn’t look like you, who didn’t believe the same things, who may have been ardent segregationists but you wanted to get to know them; you wanted to work with them because you had things to do.You had legislation to pass for what you thought was the benefit of the country.
With that being said, while I understand the relationships, I’m still very critical of the legislation that emerged from those relationships, especially when we talk about busing or we talk about the crime bills.But I’m pretty certain that there are probably, you know, decent pieces of legislation that emerged as well from those relationships.
And so I’m not someone who’s overly critical of him giving a eulogy at Strom Thurmond’s funeral, because what Black folk will tell you in South Carolina is that there was no person better on constituent services than Strom Thurmond.Whenever there was an issue that was had, people went to Strom Thurmond.
And so I don't know.I'm pretty weird about this, because I’m friends with Tim Scott; I’m friends with Nikki Haley; I’m friends with Trey Gowdy.I served with all these people.I’m friends with Mick Mulvaney.And so that doesn’t bode well for me on Twitter, but it’s real life.And I don’t really care about the criticism one receives, and I don’t hold that against Joe Biden either.
Grading Biden’s Civil Rights Record
Lastly, and then I’ll ask what we’ve missed, his civil rights record.Some people will say he didn’t do enough.Some people will say he has a pretty good civil rights record.I mean, this is one of the major issues for this campaign.How do you rate, looking back at his involvement and his success or failure?
Rate it against whom, like over the annals of time or against Trump?What’s the question?
Rated against what we expect in a politician in 2020?
Oh, in 2020?So Joe Biden’s civil rights record is one that’s nuanced.It can’t just be, I don't think, looked at through the lens of today.I think that Joe Biden’s civil rights record as vice president is glowing.And Joe Biden has the Obama halo; everybody knows that.I mean, that is—that is the cleansing of Joe Biden and everything that may have happened that was, you know, staunchly conservative under Democratic auspices for, you know, 40 years.
So the question is, how do you adjudicate his last eight years as VP?Amazing.He was there with Barack Obama; he balanced Barack Obama.He was one of the best vice presidents this country’s ever seen.How do I adjudicate his senatorial record?You know, as a United States senator, Joe Biden was a C probably on a good day.And so, I mean, you’ve got to balance that out.
But I do give people credit for where they end up in life, and I think that Joe Biden as vice president, the Joe Biden that many Black people are voting for—and that’s what people don’t understand.People aren’t voting for the Joe Biden who voted for the ’94 crime bill, who was the architect of Anita Hill’s destruction.They’re voting for Joe Biden who was Barack Obama’s vice president, and for many people, these are two different people.And so you have to give him some credit for the progress that he was made—that was made.
And there’s such a great irony that someone who was the architect of the ’94 crime bill, a white man of this age, when you think about Anita Hill, his crutch, his—the reason for his success is a Black man with a funny name who’s kind of skinny from Hawaii by way of Kansas.I don’t know, I just think that history has a very interesting way of showing itself forward.
And because you mentioned it, let’s talk for one second about Anita Hill, the Thomas hearings.What’s your overview about that performance?
… So you want to know—I tell people, do you want to know what is America?America is replacing Thurgood Marshall with another black man just because he’s black by the name of Clarence Thomas, and for the person who we’re counting on to rooting out, to root out racism, to be a part of that hearing and spectacle.
Anita Hill is extremely strong.Anita Hill deserves respect.Anita Hill deserves an apology.Joe Biden was wrong on that.I believe he acknowledges that, and he must acknowledge that because, you know, as a black woman, they usually—not usually, they oftentimes—more than often, they—they’re forced or compelled to bring up the back of this bus, especially in the Democratic Party.They just get thanked.And so that's why anything less than a black female vice president from Joe Biden is a failure.
Latest Interviews
Latest Interviews
Policies
Teacher Center
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
