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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Oh yea that Trump guy is always dropping Shakespeare references
Not sure I follow. He did say Shylock right? Clearly referring to the Shakespeare character? What else could he have been referring to? Or is Shylock somehow associated with Jews otherwise?
It's a racist slur for a Jewish banker
Do you think Biden was also being racist when he used the term? Or was he using it in a more general sense, as a term to describe immoral and unethical bankers in general?
Yes. Biden is/was a known racist. What is your point or is it just what about ism?
Was he racist in 2014? While he was vice president to a black man? The point is that some terms that old people use don't mean the same thing to them that they do to average people today.
Edit: lol, oops. Yes, Obama is black and not Jewish. I guess Biden could be antisemitic and not racist against black people. Or I suppose he could be racist and still work closely with a black man and appear convincingly to be on good terms with him. In any event it doesn't prove much about Biden being antisemitic. I think he just used a dated term because he is old.
This time? https://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/joe-biden-shylocks-reaction-111053
Pretty obviously him being racist
It's not obvious at all. It used to be a commonly used term for dishonest bankers, and it's still defined as such in most dictionaries, though many of them also note that it is less common now because of more awareness of the harmful stereotype.
Sounds like it's always been used as a slur/terrible stereotype, hell Shakespeare made the entire character a stereotype....
https://time.com/3394403/shylock-biden/
Yes. More specifically, Biden was being antisemitic when he used an antisemitic term to describe a group of people, regardless of their behavior.
What if he used a term for crooked bankers to describe crooked bankers and didn't consider that it propagated harmful stereotypes?
Then he was negligently being antisemitic. The result is the same: harmful stereotypes propagated due to his choice of words and his failure to consider them more carefully.
I had to look it up cause I didn't recall that Biden had used it. To be honest I think using the term probably falls into two categories in modern area; anitsemtic or way too old to be running anything.
I agree. There are a lot of terms like that. People used to use them commonly, but now there is more awareness of the harm in these stereotypes. A lot of old people have a hard time adjusting. Someone I know used to use the term cottonpicker until I pointed out how racist it is. Somehow he had never made the connection, which seemed crazy, but I actually believe him.