I didn’t think when I got home that the headlines would be about how President Biden mispronounced LL Cool J’s name and called him a boy! I was in the room when it happened, so I want to tell you how it happened and how I feel about it.
First, let me play the video of the gaffe made by the president.
I know the video is shaky, and I apologize for that, but I also added the audio so you can listen instead of being distracted by the footage. When you listen to or watch the video, you can hear me laughing in the background. I laughed at that moment when he messed up LL’s name because I perceived it as an 80-year-old White Man who was out of touch with Black culture and the important people within it.
Regarding him calling LL a boy, I didn’t even hear it at first, or maybe I did and didn’t pay attention to it. That’s because he switched it up so quickly and referred to him as a man and followed it up with a joke about his muscles.
Honestly, at the time I didn’t think it was a big deal, and gauging from the energy in the room, it didn’t seem like other people thought it was a big deal either. Once again, I thought it was an attempt from Biden to seem cool in front of a room of Black folks.