- Amanda Omoigui
- May 27, 2024
When Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right female, said this statement to African American Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett at a Capitol Hill hearing, the air in the House Oversight Committee room immediately thickened.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress, was quick to defend Crockett by asking for her words to be taken down. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) then proceeded to bash Marjorie Taylor Greene for insulting the physical appearance of another person. AOC’s response included, “oh girl, baby girl, don’t even play,” followed by a motion to take Greene’s words down.
After this, rather than settling the matter, Jasmine Crockett brought up her distaste for the ruling by saying, “I’m just curious. To better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleached blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
Hours later, on her personal X account, Crockett shared further distaste towards Greene by posting, “This is what happens when mentally deficient people who can’t read and follow rules or just don’t give a d*mn… somehow end up in CONGRESS!” Even now, Crockett is attempting to trademark the phrase, "bleach blonde bad-built butch body."
The entire episode played out like an SNL clip mocking high school drama. If this clip was taken as simply an audio clip, it would presumably be the conversation at a club or a gas station based fight.
In summary, these women are misrepresenting the United States Congress’s policy and agenda both nationally and internationally by letting personal matters interfere with political agenda, while the U.S. is battling with both massive internal and external conflicts. Not once should insults about physical appearance be raised in a professional work environment, especially a place so respected and publicized.
But even more importantly, the behavior shown in this clip shows a bad example for the next generation of elected officials. If we set this as standard dismissible behavior, who knows who and what we could end up with 20 years from now.
Marjorie Taylor Greene was incredibly wrong to initiate the attack, there is no incident in which the personal appearance of another Representative should be mentioned. Jasmine Crockett’s response was equally inappropriate, from directly retaliating to ranting on Twitter.
Another heavily focused idea is about the racial implication of this incident. Because it was a white woman insulting a black woman, fingers were quick to point at insults being racially based, although the premise of the situation implicated the insults to be more personal.
But this poses questions for the reader. Can you label any singular party as being "right" or "wrong"? Which party's response was more justified, and was the situation resolved appropriately? Share your thoughts in the comments!
