‘@PressSec wouldn’t be the first person to mistake a women of color for having a lower position or title than she does…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., accused White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany of racism after McEnany referred to her as a “Biden adviser.”
“[McEnany] wouldn’t be the first person to mistake a women of color for having a lower position or title than she does,” Ocasio–Cortez tweeted on Monday, “but Kayleigh – in case you haven’t picked up a newspaper in two years, I’m a Congresswoman.”
The @PressSec comment is steeped in a long, hurtful, & horrendous history of stripping women of color of titles and diminishing them to “the help.”
Perhaps she isn’t aware that what she did is mired in racist history. If that is the case, I look forward to her apology tomorrow.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 8, 2020
Ocasio–Cortez has a long history of exploitatively invoking race to deflect criticism and bludgeon the critics.
Although she is of Puerto Rican descent, she grew up comfortably in a middle-class suburb of New York City and attended the private Boston University. Her Latino background helped her secure an internship working with then-Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
While Ocasio–Cortez’s mother worked in service positions such as house-cleaning, there is no record of the congresswoman having worked as an adult in any service industry apart from the relatively lucrative field of bartending.
In addition to taking credit for oppression she never witnessed firsthand, Ocasio–Cortez also deliberately distorted the press secretary’s words.
Not only does Ocasio–Cortez sit on presidential candidate Joe Biden’s advisory board—which means it is entirely accurate to refer to her as a “Biden adviser”—but McEnany also directly referred to Ocasio–Cortez as a congresswoman during the press conference in question.
McEnany’s full quote states: “The president is appalled by the ‘defund the police’ movement. The fact that you have sitting congresswomen wanting to defund the police — notably Rashida Tlaib, notably Biden adviser Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Clinton and Eric Holder spokesperson Brian Fallon wanting to defund our police across this country, it is extraordinary.”
Read the transcript, Congresswoman @AOC ⬇️ https://t.co/knvCMmVjWh pic.twitter.com/q6uRWROYNA
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) June 8, 2020
Ocasio–Cortez has been a vocal advocate for the “Defund the Police” movement, which has drawn the ire of mainstream Democrats due to the movement’s radical intent. Biden repudiated the effort after widespread backlash revealed it to be a potential weapon for the Trump campaign.
Reminiscent of her backpedaling on earlier proposals, like the radical Green New Deal, Ocasio–Cortez and other activists have since claimed that the evolving movement doesn’t aim to completely dissolve police departments.
But confusion over the hashtag-driven slogan, echoing prior attempts to eliminate the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, has effectively helped to mobilize outrage and opposition.
As well as defunding law-enforcement, several of AOC’s fellow “Squad” members have endorsed a radical criminal-justice package, introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., that would drastically altar and weaken the prison system.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.