A comic gag turned into a gaffe for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, triggering a social media storm over what some said was their insensitivity to African-Americans.
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In a scripted bit, Clinton took the stage to thank de Blasio for his endorsement.
“Well, look, it was Mayor de Blasio’s skit”, she told Cosmopolitan.com. “Took you long enough”, which drew cheers and laughs from the crowd.
Playing up the racist idea that black people are always late to things isn’t really clever humor so much as it is just lazy bigotry made all the worse by the fact that there was a black man on stage with de Blasio.
The phrase “CP time” – which stands for “colored people time” – is a negative stereotype implying black people are habitually late.
De Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, is African-American.
During the event, the two politicians rapped with Broadway actor Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Aaron Burr in the musical “Hamilton”.
De Blasio then delivered the punchline, “Cautious Politician Time”.
“We are not anxious about jokes that may not be amusing”, said Sellers, who is black.
Bakari Sellers, a CNN contributor and Clinton supporter, said the whole repartee was “much ado about nothing”.
The African-American website TheRoot.com called the joke “cringeworthy”, as did the liberal site Salon.com.
The flap comes at a poor time for Clinton, who has enjoyed deep support from black voters during the previous primaries and is banking on their support again in New York’s April 19 primary to ward off a challenge from Vermont U.S. Sen. A headline in Gawker read “Hillary Clinton Tries to Prove She’s Not Racist with Awkward Joke About “Coloured People Time”. Bill Clinton got into an exchange with protesters last week in Philadelphia, and he later said he regretted that the argument got heated. The bill, which expanded the death penalty and mandated lengthy minimum sentences for various crimes, has been seen by some as having had devastating effects on the black community.
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But when de Blasio posted video of the event on his Facebook page on Saturday, the “CP time” joke was cut out. Mrs. Clinton said the bill was necessary to prevent the rise of so-called “super-predators”.
