Republicans have mocked young people and progressives as "snowflakes" for supposedly being too sensitive. But according to Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) has shown that he is the real snowflake.
During the hearing with Michael Cohen Wednesday, the president's former "fixer" testified about Trump's racism.
“He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘sh*thole,'” Cohen recalled. “This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.”
Meadows then trotted out Lynne Patton, a staffer from Housing and Urban Development who happens to be black.
“She says that, as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist,” Meadows said.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) then called Meadows out for his racist behavior by "using Patton as a prop" to prove Trump isn't racist. She wasn't calling Meadows a racist so much as calling the act racist. Meadows responded by having a meltdown and proclaiming he has black family members and black friends. The internet exploded with accusations about Meadows, who once said that President Barack Obama should be sent back to Kenya.
Host Chris Jansing said that she was told there were audible gasps when Meadows brought the staffer out.
"I was horrified," Glaude replied. "I found it insulting. Congressman Meadows used Lynn Patton as if she was a black Venus and put her on display. There's not necessarily a relationship between having a Black person work for you and being susceptible to racist behavior. I found Rep. Tlaib’s effort to call that out in real time courageous."
He explained that the attempt was a way of trying to undermine Cohen's claim that Trump is a racist. But what it ended up looking like was tokenizing the one low-level Trump staffer.
"That's just -- we're at a point in 2019 that can't be -- can't stand any longer," he continued.
Glaude went on to say that Meadows' actions were "profoundly racist."
"These are the same people who are so quick to call folks snowflakes," Glaude said. "One wonders who is the snowflake is. We're not going to get beyond this if we hide behind civility. Civility is often the mask of cruelty. What Representative Talib did yesterday was to call it out in real time and now we can actually have a dialogue. I don't think she needed to apologize. She called it a racist act. She didn't call him a racist. She gave him space to grow. Instead, you know, he cried crocodile tears."
Watch the full commentary below:
