Recently, my identity as an African American was questioned by a now ex-Facebook friend, after I posted a comment about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. My comment was in response to an article written by Huffington Post entitled: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Exposes The Dark Side Of Politics In 5 Incredible Minutes.” This article put the darling House of Representative star in a glorious intellectual light after her performance during a Campaign Finance hearing. The House was meeting on HR 1 For the People Act, a bill introduced by Nancy Pelosi in January that seeks to establish new rules in regards to voting rights, campaign finance laws, lobbying and ethical rules.
The House committee invited five experts and each House Member had 5-minutes to address the panel. Ocasio-Cortez addressed the panel with a scenario. She sat in a big black leather chair, with a giddy smile on her face and looked and sounded intellectual and quite studious. She purported herself to be a really bad guy who used campaign funds to silence individuals, influenced by Corporations and Super PACS. This bad guy shapes laws in favor of donor’s interest, deregulate industries and invest in company stock options to gain infinitely more wealth for themselves and their Corporate donors.
After Ocasio-Cortez presented her scenario one of the panel members, Bradley Smith, a staunch advocate of Citizens United and the Former FEC Chairman, was given the opportunity to respond. In his response he pointed out the problems with Ocasio-Cortez’s scenario:
First he pointed out the use of campaign funds for hush money was illegal.
Second he clarified the difference between campaign funds and dark money.
Mr. Smith basically made Ocasio-Cortez look seriously unprepared and juvenile. Huffington Post apparently didn’t watch the entire hearing, or intentionally misled the public when it ran the article about Ocasio-Cortez’s break down of the dark sides of politics. Huffington Post ran the article from the premises that Ocasio-Cortez exposed something deep and profound in our current political system, that an average American that followed politics, hadn’t figured out in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president. Instead of focusing on real news, (i.e. Elijah Cummings passionate comments regarding voting rights), they choose to focus on theater and classified her performance as clever and highly intelligent. The Post wanted to paint Ocasio-Cortez as an outspoken, articulate, smart female, “woman of color” so they intentionally left out that part of the hearing that debunked her theory.
When I saw the article and its misrepresentation of the facts, I couldn’t help but reply. Huffington Post perpetrated a fraud when they presented only one part of an argument. If the Huffington Post wanted to adequately address truth, they would have presented both sides of the debate. I posted a link from a twitter account that presented Bradley Smith’s response to Ocasio-Cortez.
Well my ex-Facebook friend responded with outrage. She went into a liberal rant, “why would you repost a tweet from a conservative account that seems to take joy in a white man trying to make this woman look stupid? I feel like, as a Black woman (if that’s how you identify) that there are more edifying ways to call out an argument you disagree with than by pointing to tweets and videos like the one shared.”
My ex-Facebook friend dismissed me with righteous indignation, Girl bye! She claimed I was regurgitating a conservative 101 Manuel, then she questioned my identity and implied I had a motive. To suggest because I’m a black woman, I have no right to respond to a tweet with a comment from a white conservative, is narrow minded. But I’ve come to learn that many liberal-minded people will play this card of shame if you speak out against another woman, especially if it’s supposedly a person that identifies as, woman of color—and these days many races have become people of color—but they stay away from being identified as Black. People who play this card hope to espouse guilt because you disagree with their view. I am African American and there’s no need for me to question my identity. My motive on the other hand was a different story all together.
I don’t blame my ex-Facebook friend for her tyrant liberal outburst. I blame Huffington Post. She fell for the ookie—dookie perpetrated by the Post. She really believed that Ocasio-Cortez made a grand argument that exposed the dark-side of politics and campaign funding. But the narrative is the epitome of fake news. Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez put on a brilliant performance—but why not present the response by Bradley Smith and let people decide. Maybe Ed Mazza, the writer of the piece, was aware Ocasio-Cortez comments lacked substance. Maybe he knew she was an utter spectacle and decided it was best to cut her clip with her comments, thereby removing all truth to the piece. This omission is the very reason hateful people like Donald Trump can declare fake news without a moment of hesitation.
More importantly, Ocasio-Cortez was seated next to Ayanna Pressley, an African American Massachusetts Congresswoman. During Pressley’s 5-minutes she presented a solid, concise, and well thought out discussion about voting rights. Pressley had her facts together and she had a clear understanding of voting rights and the plight of African Americans. She also broke down her reasons for supporting the house bill and was much more profound and thoughtful compared to Ocasio-Cortez. For that matter, so was Rashida Tlaib who thoroughly presented Trumps conflicts of interest, and Debbie Wasserman Shultz was on point with her line of questions on ethics. Yet the Huffington Post chose to run a story glorifying Ocasio-Cortez that was a clear fallacy. Even my ex-Facebook friend acknowledged Bradley Smith’s clip made Ocasio-Cortez look stupid.
In my view Huffington Post should retract its initial story and present the entire truth. If they want to make a credible argument that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant intellect they need a restart because this story doesn’t support that premise.