Rep. Jasmine Crockett, at this point, appears to be the latest Democrat that white conservatives have selected to make a punching bag out of (not that she cares). Right now, Republicans are toying around with the idea of censuring Crockett for referring to Gov. Greg Abbott as “Governor Hotwheels” as if these same performative white conservatives didn’t spend President Donald Trump’s entire first term defending him after he clearly and unmistakably mocked a disabled journalist.
Now, the whiny whites of the MAGA world are up in arms over a resurfaced clip of Crockett’s appearance on The Breakfast Club, during which she blasted Rep. Byron Donalds for suggesting that Black families were better off under Jim Crow. Of course, they’re not at all upset over Donalds’ convoluted diatribe about how Black families fared when they were legally second-class citizens, but they appear to be incensed over Crockett mentioning that Donalds is married to a white woman.
In the clip, Crockett is heard referring to Donalds as “some of our skinfolk who definitely are not our kinfolk,” a common sentiment among Black people in reference to “skinfolk” who choose ideologies that are more associated with white people and white nationalism.
“The fact that you’re sitting around talking about ‘life was better under Jim Crow,’ like, is this because you don’t understand history?” Crockett said at the time. “Or literally it’s because you married a white woman and so you think that whitewashed you?”
Predictably, MAGA bobbleheads across social media completely ignored the bulk of what Crockett was saying and honed in on her reference to Donalds’ white wife, which was actually relevant considering Donalds’ pro-Jim Crow comments revolved around his personal criticism of the Black family and what he seems to perceive as the post-Jim Crow eradication of the Black nuclear family.
That context aside, it’s interesting that conservatives who made a bigger deal out of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial identity than she ever did (and that includes Donalds) whine about “racism” in response to what a Black woman said about a Black man who has repeatedly proven to be anti-Black.
Fox News, for example, has been having a field day with this clip.
“I think the real issue here is for me personally is, it’s racism,” said Fox News anchor Kevin Corke. “Racism is racism. By saying that about Byron Donalds, you’re gross and I think you should be reprimanded for that.”
“Her remark is absolutely racist. To say that a Black man is not Black because he married a white woman. How far back is she taking us?!” Corke said.
I mean — not as far back as Donalds wants to take the Black family, but whatever.
For the record, Crockett never said Donalds “is not Black.” In fact, the term “skinfolk” suggests the person is Black, while the rest of the expression simply notes that being Black in and of itself doesn’t make a person “kinfolk.”
For years, white conservatives have accused Black people of being hypocrites for having contempt for Black conservatives, which is interesting since white conservatives have that same seething contempt for white liberals. It’s almost as if they expect Black people to embrace Black folk like Byron Donalds just because they’re Black, and they’re upset at Black people for judging them by the content of their character instead.
What’s also interesting is that white conservatives are perpetually blind to anti-Black racism until they perceive it as being leveled against Black conservatives — literally the only Black people they ever seem to care about.
Where was Fox News when MAGAts up and down the internet were calling Crockett “ghetto” over the way she speaks and the way she defends herself against white Republicans who had behaved far more unprofessionally on the House floor?Hell, where was Fox News when its own host, Jesse Watters, started floating around the idea that it gave Trump street cred and would attract Black voters to the MAGA world because of Black people’s love for criminality? Where was all of this faux outrage when Waters repeatedly questioned the Blackness of his Black co-host, Harold Ford Jr.? (Mind you, Waters replaced Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who complained about Black women being nominated to the Supreme Court, made tasteless George Floyd jokes on air, and erroneously suggested that Black people were dying in car accidents because cops are too afraid to pull them over because they’ll be called racist.)
Neither Fox News, Republican legislators nor the rest of the MAGA world care about anti-Black racism. If they did, they would clean up their own houses first before coming for Jasmine Crockett. Instead, we can count on them to resume calling Black professionals “DEI hires” while denying their own racism.
Sad.
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