"I will stand always for our values of human rights and dignity," former Vice President Joe Biden said last night during his DNC speech. "And I will work in common purpose for a more secure, peaceful, and prosperous world."
Someone who stands for human rights and dignity—one would think that's an unsaid trait every president naturally embodies. However, it's been almost four years since we had that with the current guy in office. And it feels like it's been much longer, especially as we continue to push through a barrier of never-ending obstacles, adding up to one of the worst eras our country has ever experienced.
Biden couldn't have expressed it better than he did: Someone who stands for human rights and dignity is exactly what this country needs in its leader.
I watched Biden's powerful address on television, over 2,000 miles away from Wilmington, Delaware (where I was born and raised), where he delivered his speech. But it felt like Biden, or Joe, which he'd insist on being called, was in the same room with me. Talking directly to me.
I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt that way.
30 years ago, I was in the same room with Joe. I was only 11 years old, but I remember what he said (his message was published, which helps my memory).
"Good and honorable people can disagree about the best way of doing things, even when they share the same goals–such as achieving peace and saving lives–and the same core values–such as respect for all people and love of country,” Biden said.
Biden has championed human rights and dignity throughout his entire political life and beyond. It's obvious that he's the person our country needs in office ASAP.
In 2008, after Barack Obama selected Biden as his VP running mate, I wrote about my Delaware connection to Biden, and his approachable presence felt throughout the years.
Biden walked into my fifth grade classroom at Wilmington Friends School and stood in front of the blackboard. He wore a dark blue suit, his signature “U.S. Senate” gold cufflinks– that busted out from inside the arms of his suit jacket–and a smile that could melt glaciers.
As he spoke, he looked into each and every one of our pre-adolescent eyes as if we were the most important constituents in the state.
Biden didn’t talk about politics, U.S. history or even about his time as a state Senator– aside from a brief professional biography, including his failed bid for the presidency in 1988.
Instead, he spoke about the importance of family. How he took the Amtrak train to and from Washington, D.C., everyday from Delaware in order to spend his free time with his wife and children.
He talked about his first wife, Neilia, his second child, Naomi, and the tragic auto accident that killed them in the early ’70s while they were Christmas shopping. He painted the bittersweet scene of being sworn into the Senate by his son Beau’s hospital bedside shortly after the accident.
The First State’s longtime political luminary has an affinity for the private Quaker school: his children, Ashley, Hunter and Beau, attended middle school there and his sister Valerie had once been the head of the history department.
Throughout the years, Biden has continued to visit Friends School.
His connection to Friends School is only one of many examples of his community connections back in my hometown, where locals cherish decades of Joe Biden stories.
Terry Maguire–my eighth-grade English teacher–recalls his second year at the school, in 1981, when he had his first personal contact with Biden.
As an adviser to the school paper, The Whittier Miscellany, Maguire, like editors everywhere, had to fill in the missing pieces of stories every so often.
“I can’t remember exactly what the story was about but I put in a call to [Biden] to ask him a couple of questions,” Maguire says over the phone from his Delaware home. “[Biden] called me back that same day; these kinds of stories have become typical of Biden around the community.”
My father, Michael Joseph–an attorney and the Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee for the state of Delaware–says it’s easier to feel a personal connection to local politicians in such a small state, particularly when they’re as accessible as Biden.
From Bar Association meetings, to train rides to Washington, D.C., and chance meetings at the grocery store, my dad ran into Biden on a fairly regular basis.
“[Biden’s] a regular guy,’’ he says. “Mom and I see him at the movie theater wearing a leather jacket and aviator glasses. We recently ran into him at the Brandywine Arts Festival.”
Eighteen years after my first encounter with Biden, it was surreal to see him glowing on television as thousands of people waved apple-red “Biden” flags at the Democratic National Convention in Denver–when he accepted the vice-presidential nomination.
His daughter Ashley, whom I used to see walking the halls at Friends School everyday, stood behind her father as he said, “I’m honored to represent the first state, my state. The state of Delaware.”
Now, 30 years after my first encounter with Biden, I can say without any reservations, we need to get him into the White House so the mending can begin.
Last night, Biden said in closing, "May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation.
And this is a battle that we, together, will win."
Yes, Joe, my buddy, my pal, we shall win this battle, but only with you at the helm.
Comments