It’s a grim reality of American politics that being a prominent, outspoken Black woman often means spending an entire career justifying one’s very existence. For many observers, this dynamic helps explain why Kamala Harris is not sitting in the Oval Office today. The misogynoir Black women in politics are forced to navigate just to be marginally respected, let alone elected, remains staggering, and in the era of MAGA politics, it has only intensified.
That reality was on full display this week following remarks by Vice President JD Vance at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix. Speaking to a predominantly white audience, Vance declared, “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” The comment landed less as a historical observation and more as a signal. As critics noted, it echoed a familiar refrain, not about absolving guilt, but about excusing racism under the banner of grievance.
Vance underscored that point moments later when he took aim at Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, sneering that she “wants to be a senator, though her street girl persona is about as real as her nails.” The insult relied on tired racial tropes, ones Black women in public life have endured for generations.
Crockett, however, appeared unfazed. Responding on MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime, she framed the remark as just another example of the racism she has encountered her entire life. “Anybody that you talk to knows my credentials. They know that I’ve gone to school. They know that I’m educated,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I am who I am, and I am authentic.”
That authenticity, Crockett argued, is precisely what unsettles her critics. She has never styled herself as a “street girl” or any of the caricatures her opponents project onto her. Instead, those labels reveal an inability, or unwillingness, to distinguish authentic Blackness from the stereotypes white conservatives find convenient.
Such rhetoric should be condemned outright, especially when it comes from the highest levels of government. Instead, it has been normalized in a political culture eager to make bigotry commonplace again. Still, Crockett remains resolute. She says she will not be distracted.
“When they can tell me about their policies that are helping Texas, then we can have a conversation,” she said. “Until then, take whatever shots you want to take at me, because I have been a Black woman my entire life.”
