P. Diddy & Van Jones urge Black woman for Joe veep

More than 100 Black men, including several A-list cultural figures, called on Joe Biden on Monday to pick a Black woman as his Democratic vice presidential running mate.

With the veepstakes decision coming to a head, rapper P. Diddy, Prof. Michael Eric Dyson and CNN commentator Van Jones headlined an open letter backing a call by 700 Black women for Biden to put an African-American woman on the ticket.

“We stand in solidarity with them,” the luminaries say in the letter.

The Black men noted that Black women are the undisputed backbone of the Democratic Party and have shown wide crossover appeal as candidates in recent elections.

“Black women are defining the future of politics, so it’s time you let one define the future of your campaign,” the letter said.

There was no immediate response from Biden.

Among the leading candidates on Biden’s veepstakes list: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), former national security adviser Susan Rice and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.). Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams are considered long shots.

The letter noted that Biden has enjoyed virtually uncritical support from Black voters, who rescued his flagging campaign with a resounding victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary. The former vice president went on to sweep several contests on Super Tuesday, putting him on a glide path to the nomination.

The Black men said the White House ambitions of some of the Black women named as front-runners should not be seen as a negative factor.

Among the other big-name signatories are Princeton Prof. Eddie Glaude, lawyer Ben Crump, basketball superstar Chris Paul and Brooklyn’s Rev. Herbert Daughtry.

Morning radio host Lenard “Charlamagne Tha God” McKelvey, who got into a spat with Biden about the ex-veep’s comment that Blacks who vote Republican “ain’t really Black,” also signed onto the letter.

The letter took a controversial tone when it predicted the Democratic nominee will lose if he doesn’t tap a Black woman as his running mate, while seeming to suggest that President Trump and Biden are both white “devils.”

“We don’t want to ... want to vote for the devil we know versus the devil we don’t,” the letter reads. “We are tired of voting for devils — period.”