A Cornered Critter.…

Nothing gives me more delight than to see a Racist cringe and squirm when cor­nered with facts about their racism. Call me sadis­tic if you want, I have no regrets about the joy I feel at their dis­com­fort.
Reason being, Racism is a mal­a­dy eas­i­ly cured with infor­ma­tion, open­ness, and eschew­ing hatred.

On Wednesday I got to sali­vate at anoth­er exam­ple of that dis­com­fort, this time it was in the hear­ing room in the US Capitol build­ing, as the House Oversight Committee con­duct­ed hear­ings in the ongo­ing Trump Russia saga, with Michael Cohen Trump’s for­mer per­son­al lawyer tes­ti­fy­ing to the com­mit­tee.
Quite pre­dictably, with one minor excep­tion, the entire Republican ques­tions to Michael Cohen was about his char­ac­ter.
Not one Republican mem­ber cared to ask a sin­gle ques­tion regard­ing the crimes Cohen alleged that Donald Trump com­mit­ted.
In a shock­ing yet pre­dictable dis­play of slav­ish feal­ty, the world watched as the Republican mem­bers of the com­mit­tee demon­strat­ed that they were noth­ing more than cheap water car­ri­ers for Donald Trump.

But it was Mark Meadows who squirmed under the spot­light as a fresh­man mem­ber of the Committee, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan’s 13^th District trained her fire on the cor­rup­tion and lat­er on Mark Meadows the leader of the so-called Freedom cau­cus on the Republican side.
In a stir­ring address to the com­mit­tee, Congresswoman Tlaib went straight to the cor­rup­tion ram­pant in the Trump White House.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman for cen­ter­ing this com­mit­tee on our sole pur­pose: expos­ing the truth. Some of my col­leagues can’t han­dle the truth and this unfor­tu­nate because it is at the cen­ter of pro­tect­ing our coun­try. “The peo­ple at home are frus­trat­ed and want the crim­i­nal schemes to stop, espe­cial­ly those from the Oval Office. “Mr. Cohen, I am upset, and know that my res­i­dents feel the same way, that the man you worked for the past 10 years, is using the most pow­er­ful posi­tion in the world, to hurt our coun­try sole­ly for per­son­al gain. “We are upset that some of my col­leagues here are so dis­con­nect­ed of what it means to have this President of the United States send­ing checks to cov­er bribe pay­ments you made on his behalf. One in March 2017 and anoth­er one August 2017 after he was sworn in as President. “They (my res­i­dents) are all upset that while my col­leagues are try­ing to dis­cred­it your tes­ti­mo­ny by some of your own unlaw­ful acts and lies, that they are dis­con­nect­ed with the fact that you were the per­son­al lawyer for this President of the United States. That this President chose YOU as his legal coun­sel. “My stance has always been the same based on the facts of what we know not of some future report that we are wait­ing on. My res­i­dents back home don’t need a col­lu­sion cause with a for­eign gov­ern­ment to know that the President, Individual 1, has dis­re­gard­ed the law of the land, the US Constitution, that he has even mis­used his par­don pow­ers. “In the sen­tenc­ing memo filed by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors in New York in December of last year, they stat­ed, quote: “’In par­tic­u­lar, and as Cohen him­self has now admit­ted, with respect to both pay­ments, he act­ed in coör­di­na­tion with and at the direc­tion of Individual‑1.’
“Mr. Cohen, as you know President Donald Trump “brand” comes first, not the American peo­ple. Based on what we know now is that indi­vid­ual 1 used his mon­ey, busi­ness­es, and plat­form to enrich him­self, his brand, and in the process direct­ed you, Mr. Cohen, to com­mit mul­ti­ple felonies and cov­er it up. You called it “pro­tect­ing his brand great,” cor­rect?“Mr. Cohen, with this, do you think the President is mak­ing deci­sions in the best inter­ests of Americans? Especially those that you said he used hor­ri­ble words about? African Americans? Muslims Americans? Immigrants?

But then Congresswoman Tlaib direct­ed her fire at Mark Meadows who in the most asi­nine way imag­in­able, brought an African-American woman to the com­mit­tee as a prop to demon­strate to the world that Donald Trump could not be a racist as alleged by Michael Cohen, because she worked for Donald Trump.
The woman in ques­tion, a non-com­mit­tee mem­ber Lynne Patton, was brought in by Meadows and made to stand on the GOP side of the daïs while Meadows berat­ed Michael Cohen in front of the entire world.
Patton, a for­mer par­ty plan­ner for the Trump Organization and old friend of Cohen’s, who now over­sees pub­lic hous­ing in New York and New Jersey for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, stood silent­ly as Representative Mark Meadows (R‑NC) point­ed to her, a black woman:
“Lynne Patton says she would not work for a man who is racist,” the con­gress­man said, after Cohen had referred to Trump in his pre­pared remarks as a racist. “She dis­agrees with you.”
Micahel Cohen rec­om­mend­ed Patton to Donald Trump for employ­ment. So to use Patton against Cohen was in a word, ‘stu­pid.“
And on that con­gress­woman Tlaib was merciless.

Just to make a note Mr. Chairman, just because some­one has a per­son of col­or, a Black per­son work­ing for them, does not mean that aren’t racist. And it’s insen­si­tive, some would even say racist in itself, to use a Black woman as a prop to prove oth­er­wise. “Donald Trump is set­ting a prece­dent that the high­est office can be attained through inten­tion­al ille­gal activ­i­ty, cov­er up, and to hold onto busi­ness assets to break cam­paign finance law and con­sti­tu­tion­al claus­es. “What we have here is crim­i­nal con­duct in the pur­suit of the high­est pub­lic office by Mr. Cohen and Individual 1. I hope that the grav­i­ty of this sit­u­a­tion hits every­one in this body, in Congress, and across the country.” 

Like a cor­nered Critter, Mark Meadows was livid at Tlaib, he lashed out claim­ing that Patton had come to the hear­ing of her own voli­tion.….….….….….….….…… Right!
Meadows also point­ed to the fact that mem­bers of his own fam­i­ly were peo­ple of col­or. It’s racist to sug­gest I asked her to come in for that rea­son,” Meadows said.
Meadows demand­ed that Congresswoman Tlaib’s exchange be “strick­en from the record” and adamant­ly denied alle­ga­tions of racism. 

Mark Meadows must have for­got­ten that he was video­taped in 2012 mak­ing racist com­ments against President Barack Obama.
“2012 is the time we’re going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wher­ev­er it is,” Meadows said at a June 9, 2012, ral­ly. “We’re going to do it!” Three days lat­er, he made a sim­i­lar remark at a Tea Party event.

Now I real­ly don’t want to spend any more time talk­ing about Mark Meadows, a back­wa­ter unen­light­ened tea-par­ty racist. Already too much thought has been giv­en to this two-bit igno­ra­mus who cow­ered like a cor­nered dog beg­ging the black chair­man of the com­mit­tee, Elijah Cummings to come to his defense.
Frankly, if you are not a racist there is no need for any­one to come to your defense to vouch for you. You would have a record of doing things which are not racists.
Unfortunately for Meadows, he is the tip of the spear when it comes to white enti­tle­ment and white racism in America.
The idea that he believed that bring­ing Patton in, and using her as a prop, would be some­thing which would blunt charges of racism against Donald Trump is insane­ly pre­pos­ter­ous on its face.
Not to men­tion Meadows’ insen­si­tiv­i­ty to the igno­rant racism with­in him­self and far too many white Americans who claim not to be racist, but whose actions are the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of racism.

As for the prop, I won’t give her any more thought either. Any per­son of col­or, least of all an African-American who allows him/​herself to be used in that degrad­ing and trans­par­ent a racist man­ner, deserves to be used in that degrad­ing and racist man­ner.
As the late, great James Baldwin said “I am not your negro.”