Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) speaks during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 20, 2024, in Washington, D.C. | Source: Win McNamee / Getty
Once again — as sure as the sun rises and sets — white people have responded to the heated exchange between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Rep. Nancy Mace by calling Crockett ghetto, and, as usual, it’s truly baffling. (Or it would be if Black people weren’t so accustomed to watching white privilege operate right in our faces.)
For those who missed it, Crockett and Mace got into it with each other during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Tuesday, during which Democrat and Republican legislators debated the necessity of creating a subcommittee to aid President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to create a Department of Government Efficiency, which would be chaired by former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Trump loyalist (or overseer?) Elon Musk. While Crockett and other Democratic lawmakers generally argued that a subcommittee to compliment another subcommittee was the opposite of “government efficiency” (because, well, duh) Mace decided to go completely off-topic and delve into an anti-trans rant.
MORE: ‘Bless Her Heart’: Jasmine Crockett Reacts To Nancy Mace Challenging Her To A Fight ‘Outside’
“You all want men with penises, chicks with dicks, in the bathroom with us. You don’t respect women,” Mace said. “Women have the freedom to go to a private women’s only space and not see a man in it. Women have the right to change and not be feared that somebody with their sexual perversion, someone who’s confused about their gender, we have the right to feel safe in these spaces.”
Crockett responded to Mace’s out-of-nowhere anti-trans bigotry by calling out the irrelevance of it and suggesting that Mace was simply bringing it up as a buzz issue to inflame the MAGA crowd and, more importantly, Republican donors.
“I don’t even know how … we got there,” Crockett said. “Somebody’s campaign coffers really are struggling right now. So she gonna keep saying trans, trans, trans so that people will feel threatened … and, Chile, listen…”
Crockett didn’t, at any point, behave unprofessionally, unlike Mace, who literally challenged the congresswoman to a fight during a congressional session, saying they could “take it outside.” Crockett spoke eloquently and professionally while being sound in her logic. The only problem is — she sounded like a Black woman while doing so.
Source: X screenshot
Source: X screenshot
Source: X screenshot
Interesting, isn’t it? These same people have elected for the second time probably the most inarticulate president to ever get his old man drool all over the Oval Office furniture, and yet, somehow, Crockett is behaving beneath the integrity of her office because — she’s a Black woman who sounds like a Black woman when she speaks?
Crockett’s use of the word “chile” has clearly baffled a lot of white people, including Mace, who seem to think she was literally being called a child (which, honestly, still would have been appropriate since Mace absolutely behaves like one). Now, I’m not normally one to explain African American Vernacular English to perpetual colonizers, but, in this case — since it seems to be the sole reason racist white people are calling her “ghetto” — it’s worth it to provide a little context.
When Black people, usually Black women, use “chile,” which is much different than “child,” it is simply an expressive term to emphasize the absurdity of whatever they’re responding to, which, in this case, was Mace’s impromptu “trans hate” rant, including her use of the words “chicks with dicks” during a House session. (But no, Mace isn’t “ghetto” at all, right?)
So, to recap, Mace used inappropriate language on the House floor while spewing bigotry unprompted, and then she tried to turn Congress into Jerry Springer by challenging Crockett to a fight. But she did this while being a white woman, so it’s not “ghetto.” Crockett was well-spoken and accurate when calling Mace out for derailing the topic of discussion, but she sounded like the Black woman she is while doing so. In other words: “ghetto trash.”
Black people don’t code-switch because we just love flexing the totality of our linguistic abilities — we do it because white privilege is real and white society is racist. It’s that simple.
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