by Gordon Ashley

Created on: February 11, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2011

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DL) used those words to describe fellow 2008 Presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-IL), sparking a controversy he really should have seen coming. Biden, unlike Obama, is no newcomer to the stage of national politics. He's even made a bid for the White House twenty years before. Nevertheless, Biden said this thing. The best (or worst) part is how he forgot to say "candidate" after "African-American."

There has been some debate as to the meaning and intent of the statement, but it is perhaps not surprising that the adjective which seems to have struck the loudest chord is "articulate."

It's not such a big thing, the word articulate. It has been applied to Colin Powell, without causing furor. It's opposite has been applied to President Bush, and nobody seemed to think that calling the Commander in Chief "inarticulate" implied him to be the typical black man. However, in referring to Obama in this way, Biden has raised the question of whether or not he meant that African-Americans in general are inarticulate.

There is something very important to remember in this issue. Whether or not someone is articulate has nothing to do with ethnicity. It is a question, rather, of education - did he receive one, and did he value it?

Barack Obama received an education, and clearly he valued it. He attended both Columbia University and later, Harvard. Calling a Harvard grad "articulate" is - or at least should be - redundant.

If it seems unusal to hear such articulation from an African-American, one must remember that being black does not make one speak in Ebonics. I've seen plenty of pale idiots trying out the dialect as well. It is, as I say, a matter of education.

Rather than getting upset on the one hand or defensive on the other, Americans should use this opportunity to bring up the very important issue of education - and the lack thereof - in our country. People like Barack Obama are fortunate and blessed to enjoy the fruits of higher learning, but so many of our people - blacks, whites, and just about anybody else as well - are not so fortunate.

Imagine, for a moment, a future in which it is not only redundant to call a Harvard man "articulate" - but in which it would be redundant to call an American so.

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