Say what you want but there’s no denying that Texas Representative Jasmine Crocket is a showstopper extraordinaire. When she peers out over her eyeglasses or when her voice pierces the air, people stop, listen, cheer or jeer. There’s something unique about this firebrand of a woman that brings out either the best or worst in human beings.
And I love it.
But first, to cast this narrative in a racial context as, like it or not, Crocket manages to do with aplomb, allow me to introduce you to one Robin DiAngelo.
In 2018, DiAngelo wrote the best-seller, “White Fragility” which drew the attention – and ire – of millions. DiAngelo who, worth noting, is a white woman who defined white fragility as “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These include displays of emotions such as anger, fear, guilt, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”
Now it seems that nowadays social media is a safe space for such displays where people unleash their pent-up anger and frustrations.
Okay with that as an introduction let me thank you, ladies, for setting my naïve behind straight, for taking me out behind the proverbial woodshed and putting me in my place. Sorry ladies, but I naively figured that my question (I’ll get to it shortly) was a fair one, maybe one that was in the back of many minds. But I guess I was wrong.
So, what got you coming after me with barbs and daggers? Well, it seems that a recent social media post that featured Crockett caused your meltdown. The avalanche of responses to that post started with this one from “Beth.”
“Look at her face. She’s one evil (expletive) and I hope she’s thrown out of office and back to the hood where she belongs.”
Like one in a pack of wild dogs circling a recent kill, “Maria” chimed in with this:
“She’s an example of what’s wrong in America. I’m sick of looking at her fake eyebrows and wig. She’s an embarrassment to her race.”
Wait, there’s more.
From “Alice,” “She’s an attention getting, lying loudmouth left wing hater of white people. She’s living in an alternate world. She’s dumber than a rock, not smart and cannot understand anything that’s happening.”
Now along with some, should I say, “lapses” in proper grammar that would embarrass any elementary school English teacher, saying that Crocket was from the “hood” or “ghetto” were common words that showed up in many comments. She should “go back to Africa” was another (never mind the fact that she was born and raised in Texas). And if those weren’t enough, some disparaged her constituents as ignorant and uneducated.
I could go on, but you get the drift.
After scrolling through pages of similar comments – 95 percent of them from women I should note – some too graphic to repeat in this space, I asked a question similar to one I posed years ago that led to my article, “Women vs Women, an undeclared war in the workplace,” and its blowback from many women (and nods and fist bumps from some guys I passed in hallways when they figured that nobody was watching). Here it is:
From what I’ve observed, it appears that most of the negative comments about Representative Crockett are from other women. It seems that comments like these are rarely directed at men. What’s up with that?”
Well, all hell broke loose and y’all angry ladies came after me in droves. For a second I thought that the first hurricane of the season was heading my way.
“Why did you play the race card Howard?” asked “Martha. “Her race has nothing to do with her ignorance.” Now not one to be outdone “Toni” wrote, “You’re proving yourself to be a hater of white people.” Never mind that not once did I mention race in my question.
Reread my question ladies.
Now years ago, my response to “Martha” and “Toni” would have been defensively along the lines of that “here we go again” outworn troupe, “some of my best friends are…” But these days I’m amused by the absurdity of accusations like that that roll off me like water on the back of a wet duck, especially when I think about the number of white people who have been married into my family, including a sister-in-law.
But when “Edith” accused me of being a “left-wing radical homosexual,” I was flummoxed, left scratching my head trying to figure out how on earth “Edith” could reach such a far-fetched conclusion about my sexual orientation.
C’mom “Edith,” reread my question.
“Crockett is nothing but a loudmouth, race baiting woman from the hood,” wrote “Lisa.” “I can’t stand looking at her face when she’s in the news.”
“There’s no doubt that you’re one of those left-wing America hating libtards,” wrote “Mark,” one the few men who added to the message string (another called me a leftist knucklehead). “You are an example of what’s wrong with America.”
Okay enough is enough readers. However, I did want to leave you with an observation to noodle on.
You see, I scrolled through hundreds of comments made about Crockett, the overwhelming were the kinds of personal attacks about her physical characteristics described above. Not once did I find any that took Representative Crocket to task on her on policy issues. Not once.
So okay ladies, yes, you got me told. I had the audacity to pose a legitimate question I thought made perfectly good sense. But you slammed me down, “confirmed” my racial animus and, to “Ms. Edith,” you even questioned my sexual orientation. But a funny thing happened on my way to what legitimately could have been my outrage about the things you wrote about me…..I laughed and still am laughing.
In the end, there’s one thing that’s clear to fair minded folks who read this narrative; not once did any of my attackers answer the question I posed that got them so rattled. So what should we make of that?
So, for all you “thoughtful” ladies who so harshly lambasted Representative Crockett and yours truly, the advice here to consider pick up a copy of DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” along with Roland Martin’s recent one, “White Fear: How the browning of America is Making White Floks Lose Their Minds.”
Oops, there I go again (I know you’re thinking “Martha” and “Toni”) playing the race…. or “books” card.
Meanwhile, my question remains unanswered.
Terry Howard is an award-winning writer, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.
