Biden refers to Maryland’s first black governor, Wes Moore, as ‘boy’ in speech

President Biden used the word “boy,” a term considered a racial epithet when used to describe black men, to refer to Democrat Wes Moore, Maryland’s first black governor, in a speech Wednesday.

“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore, I tell ya,” Biden said during remarks on the economy Wednesday to an audience of IBEW union workers in Lanham, Maryland. 

“He’s the real deal, and the boy looked like he could still play. He got some guns on him,” Biden added, eliciting cheers from the crowd. 

Moore, who played wide receiver on the Johns Hopkins University football team as a student, was elected governor of Maryland in a landslide last November. He is 44 years old. 

The 80-year-old president has been called out before for his use of the racially charged word.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) decried Biden’s use of “boy” on the campaign trail in 2019 in describing his ability to work with segregationist senators. 

“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said at a Manhattan fundraiser, referring to the white supremacist senator from Mississippi. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

“You don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys,’ ” Booker said in a statement, blasting Biden for using the insensitive term. 

Biden has also used the term in the past to refer to men of other races. 

The president awkwardly hailed Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama’s win at the 2021 Masters tournament by telling Japan’s prime minister during a press conference that “you’ve got a Japanese boy coming over here and guess what? He won the Masters. He won the Masters. He won the green jacket.”

Matsuyama was 29 years old at the time. 

In October, Biden referred to Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who is white and 59, as “boy” during a speech on student loan forgiveness. 

“And Chris Coons, who has the seat I used to hold. Only difference is that he not only has a law degree, he has a divinity degree. The boy can preach,” Biden said. 

The Harvard Law Review notes that in 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recognized that a supervisor’s use of the word “boy” to refer to black employees can be considered racism.

“Although … [t]he disputed word will not always be evidence of racial animus, it does not follow that the word, standing alone, is always benign,” the court found, according to the Harvard Law Review. 

The publication added that legally, the meaning of the term may depend on “context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage.”