Everybody In This Post Completely Over Rep. Byron Donalds's Bullsh*t
Poor guy getting gaslighted by having his words quoted verbatim, awwwwww.
The Congressional Black Caucus had this to say this week about Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who is Black:
“This is a pattern of embracing racist ideologies that we see time and again within the MAGA Republican Party. Rep. Donalds is playing his role as the mouthpiece who will say the quiet parts out loud that many will not say themselves. His comments were shameful and beneath the dignity of a member of the House of Representatives. He should immediately offer an apology to Black Americans for misrepresenting one of the darkest chapters in our history for his own political gain.”
Mouthpiece who will say the quiet parts loud that many will not say themselves. In other words, if we’re interpreting them correctly, they’re saying Donalds is helpful to MAGA because he puts a Black face on white supremacy.
Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries had this to say to Donalds:
“You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
OK, Jeffries had WAY MORE to say than that. If you missed what everybody’s so furious about that Donalds said, let Jeffries explain how Donalds said Black families had it so much better under Jim Crow.
“We were not better off when a young boy named Emmett Till could be brutally murdered without consequence because of Jim Crow. We were not better off when Black women could be sexually assaulted without consequence because of Jim Crow. We were not better off when people could be systematically lynched without consequences because of Jim Crow. We were not better off when children could be denied a high quality education without consequence because of Jim Crow. We were not better off when people could be denied the right to vote without consequence because of Jim Crow.
“How DARE you make such an ignorant observation? You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
Well damn.
Let’s look at exactly what Donalds, one of the lowest-integrity Republican congressmen this side of Nancy Mace, actually said, because he is GRRR SO ANGRY that everybody is supposedly misrepresenting him.
This was tweeted by the Biden campaign, because obviously:
DONALDS: During Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative, Black people have always been conservative-minded, but more Black people voted conservatively …
And so forth.
Donalds is all over Twitter and TV scuh-reaming about DON’T CLIP MY WORDS! and YOU TOOK ME OUT OF CONTEXT! and GASLIGHTING!
But if you watch his full comments, all it proves is that Donalds knows exactly how to spout white supremacist talking points.
You see, this is what the Congressional Black Caucus was talking about. He yaps that this is all about Black FAMILIES, he’s bemoaning that black FAMILIES (allegedly) used to be better off during Jim Crow. That’s all he’s saying! Just in this one specific way, Black people did better! (Allegedly.) Meanwhile, he gets to wink at the white racist MAGA voters by saying the words “During Jim Crow” over and over again.
It’s all very …
Here, don’t listen to us, a white boy writer, listen to this Black woman who goes by Candidly Tiff, who stitched Donald’s comments, explaining in great detail how what Donalds said is literally verbatim talking points from white Christian fascist organizations like the Heritage Foundation and other anti-abortion white Christian conservatives, who have been telling Black folks what’s good for them for decades since … well, since literally the fucking birth of this nation if you catch our drift.
She also notes that if Byron Donalds is so concerned about Black families and marriages, then Donalds’s own marriage — to a white woman — was not legal during Jim Crow in Florida, all the way up until Loving. She finishes by saying he’s full of shit and needs some self-awareness. “His goal is to cape for white supremacy, that is his mission. And he’s trying to be VP, which is never gonna happen, but good luck to him.” (Uh oh, sounds like he didn’t make Trump’s short list.)
On CNN the other night, Abby Phillip laid Donalds out on the facts, asking if he regretted tying his comments to Jim Crow. He tried to swear up and down that he never suggested that Black people were better off during Jim Crow because they were together, despite how that is exactly what he said, regardless of if whether he used the exact word “better.”
He also insisted that he is “one of the better communicators in the Republican Party,” so that was LOL.
Here is Phillip explaining that the Black unemployment rate and poverty rate are the lowest in American history under Joe Biden, so you can’t even say it was better under Trump.
On Joy Reid’s show last night, Donalds just screamed a lot, but she didn’t care. When he bitched and moaned about people saying he was being “nostalgic” for Jim Crow, she noted it was he who brought up Jim Crow “three times for emphasis.”
She asked if there was a “specific period between 1867 after the Civil War, to 1968, is there a specific period between 1867 and 1968 that you thought was this golden era for Black families, or a time that you thought was good for Black families?” He started yelling that he never said that, but she was like nope, MFer, gonna play the tape now. And she dd.
Finally, she made the same point that was made above, that Donalds couldn’t even have been married to his wife during Jim Crow. He agreed with Reid when she said she’s glad she doesn’t live during Jim Crow. “Perhaps don’t bring up Jim Crow when you’re trying to make that example,” Reid said, helpfully.
But remember, when Donalds says things like that to Joy Reid, or even in the parts of the Abby Phillip interview where he was nice, he knows he’s speaking to a CNN or MSNBC audience. Repeating the “Jim Crow” dogwhistle three times isn’t effective with that audience like it is with MAGA voters.
Finish by reading this excellent thread from Black writer Michael Harriot, who painstakingly details what Jim Crow was really about, how Black people were better off in exactly zero ways, and why Donalds is just shilling for white supremacists who believe “Black people are too dumb to know what’s good for them.”
Here are his last couple tweets, but you need to read it all to see how he gets there:
[JoeMyGod / videos via Biden campaign / Acyn / Candidly Tiff]
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If we're concerned about the Black family, we could always invest in them. You know... make sure Black children get a good education from schools with good equipment, good teachers, and good afterschool programs that provide safe spaces for kids while their parents work.
Maybe we could make sure jobs pay a living wage. Provide child care for working adults. Provide health insurance for all Americans. Ensure that kids are fed and don't go hungry.
Maybe we could make sure that community colleges and public universities are actually public and cost nothing to attend providing more opportunities for success?
Maybe we could not arrest Black men and women at higher rates than everyone else and punish the ones who do break the law the same way we punish white people who break the law?
Maybe we can increase funding to the civil rights department of the DoJ so they can be more proactive in fighting discrimination. Maybe we can increase the punishment for actual discrimination so businesses that engage in it feel pain when we slap them on the wrist.
Maybe we can increase their fucking political power by ending gerrymandering and making sure all politicians have to take their voices seriously.
Maybe we can agree that Black Lives do matter. Establish community policing, civilian oversight boards, and a check on police conduct in the form of a more adversarial department charged with policing them.
Maybe try that "liberty and justice for all" shit that schoolkids repeat every day.
I'm still gobsmacked that a wealthy, educated Black man can sit in a restaurant smoking a cigar and regaling a room full of white people about how times were better when the conditions were such that he wouldn't have been wealthy, he wouldn't have been educated, and he wouldn't have been allowed in that restaurant. Dude needs a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.