Karine Jean-Pierre Rips Republicans’ Anti-Racism Meeting

Karine Jean-Pierre is a queen. That’s it. That’s the whole story. But just to underscore my point, let me offer some backstory.

First, a Question

If MAGA Republicans aren’t defaulting to racist and sexist attacks against the vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, what do they even have to work with?

Republicans are so prone to racist and sexist attacks on prominent Black women in positions of power that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) felt compelled to convene a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to warn his fellow GOP legislators to, well, stop doing that.

“This election will be about policies and not personalities,” Johnson told reporters after the congressional bigotry-oholics anonymous meeting. “This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

What does it say about his party that a meeting like was even necessary?

Why does the House Speaker even need to address it?

This is the Why

Because Donald Trump’s MAGA minions have referred to Harris repeatedly as a “DEI hire,” despite the fact that she was appointed by the president to a position for which there is no existing diversity, equity and inclusion program—and despite the fact that the presidency and vice presidency are elected positions not attached to any DEI initiatives.

Because these people don’t care about the facts. They openly and proudly say they care about hatred, racism, sexism and bigotry. I mean, these are people who have made the inherently misogynistic claim that Harris “slept her way to the top,” which, as far as I can tell, is based solely on a brief relationship she had in the 1990s with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. That was a full decade before she was elected to the office of District Attorney of San Francisco, moving on from there to become the Attorney General of California, a U.S. senator, and, finally, the vice president of the United States.

Because MAGAs, with Trump leading the way, have taken shots at her intelligence. Trump! A businessman who has taken six of his companies into bankruptcy is out here calling Vice President Harris– a scholar who is the daughter and sister of scholars,  “dumb as a rock.”

Trump is the commander-in-covefefe-and-hamberders who told people that shooting injecting disinfectants ike Lysol  might cure COVID, and who, like a racist second-grader who gets beaten up at home, made fun of Harris’ first name desperately trying to resurrect the racist AF “birther” argument that failed twice to work on former President Barack Obama!

Someone had to say that’s it. Sit down and don’t utter one more word.

Which brings me back to Karine Jean-Pierre.

Queen Karine

This where White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre—who is certainly no stranger to being on the receiving end of white conservative misogynoir herself—becomes defining. Become royalty. On Thursday during a White House briefing, she pretty much said it all: 

“When you have the speaker of the House – obviously a Republican and this is something you all have reported – set up a meeting to tell Republican leaders to stop being racist, to stop being misogynist, to stop being sexist, I think that says a lot that they have to be told to not do that.

But more broadly…I think it’s desperate. I think it’s disgusting and I think it’s a dog whistle. And we should not forget that [Kamala Harris] is the vice president of the United States… [Give her]… respect. She’s been doing this job with the president for almost four years. She’s a former senator and has been a critical partner in getting the economy restarted and making sure that we deal with the pandemic. And to hear [these remarks about here are]  frankly disgusting.”

Her Grace Was a Gift. Recognize.

But wrong party and wrong unhinged presidential candidate. Trump can’t manage decency, respect, truth and hope even when it’s scripted for him.

And most of all, it will be about women–queens–like Karine Jean-Pierre who, locs, brown skin and all, refused to step back, sit quietly or let anyone, let alone the MAGAs, to shut her or Black women or truth or democracy, down.