Was he racist in 2014? While he was vice president to a black man? The point is that some terms that old people use don't mean the same thing to them that they do to average people today.

Edit: lol, oops. Yes, Obama is black and not Jewish. I guess Biden could be antisemitic and not racist against black people. Or I suppose he could be racist and still work closely with a black man and appear convincingly to be on good terms with him. In any event it doesn't prove much about Biden being antisemitic. I think he just used a dated term because he is old.

What if he used a term for crooked bankers to describe crooked bankers and didn't consider that it propagated harmful stereotypes?

It's not obvious at all. It used to be a commonly used term for dishonest bankers, and it's still defined as such in most dictionaries, though many of them also note that it is less common now because of more awareness of the harmful stereotype.

I agree. There are a lot of terms like that. People used to use them commonly, but now there is more awareness of the harm in these stereotypes. A lot of old people have a hard time adjusting. Someone I know used to use the term cottonpicker until I pointed out how racist it is. Somehow he had never made the connection, which seemed crazy, but I actually believe him.