Ocasio-Cortez Attempts To Play the Victim After Getting Caught Using Strange Accent
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez generated plenty of media coverage from her Friday appearance at a conference hosted by Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
The freshman New York Democrat called for “examining and pursuing an agenda of reparations” and said that her signature Green New Deal proposal didn’t “shy away from bold conversations of health care, housing and education as human rights, of living wages and dignified work, of policy that isn’t just drafted with the next election in mind but also with the next generation in mind.”
And then there was the curious case of her accent — or whether she was putting on a new one.
Responding to President Donald Trump’s quip that the Green New Deal was written by “a young bartender,” Ocasio-Cortez offered a paean to low-skilled workers.
“This is what organizing looks like, this is what building power looks like, this is what changing the country looks like,” Ocasio-Cortez said
“I’m proud to be a bartender, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with working retail, folding clothes for other people to buy. There is nothing wrong with preparing the food that your neighbors will eat. There is nothing wrong with driving the buses that take your family to work.”
All of this is a perfectly reasonable line of thinking. Sometimes, however, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Remember that the National Action Network is a mostly African-American organization and Ocasio-Cortez is, well, not African-American. Watching the clip and noting the strange intonations, you may begin to see why there was a controversy:
Ocasio-Cortez speaks in an accent that she never uses while telling a room of predominately black people that there is nothing wrong with them folding clothes, cooking, and driving other people around on a bus for a living. pic.twitter.com/FIbIAPokt0
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 5, 2019
I suppose you could call the Southern accent a bit of code switching — except Ocasio-Cortez, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t lived anywhere below the Mason-Dixon. In other words, she doesn’t really have the code to switch. That made people think this was just a smidgen racist:
@aoc using a fake black southern accent to talk to a room full of black people is racist. Surprised you didn’t pull out a bottle of hot sauce and showed it to them. You are a racist.
— JV (@DJStarski72) April 6, 2019
.@AOC is literally me in middle school trying to talk with an accent in a shameless attempt to earn approval of the cool black guys.
This is just sad. What is y’all doing?pic.twitter.com/Rz0cxHywIL
— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) April 5, 2019
This is the end for me. How dare @AOC get up there and disrespect the intelligence and integrity of black folks like that
I literally could not watch this all the way through the first 5 attempts.
These Democrats are pimping out black neighborhood in plane view!!
Dang shame https://t.co/fiBnN05h3U
— Brandon Tatum (@TheOfficerTatum) April 6, 2019
And then there was another issue one Twitter user pointed out:
This embarrassment of a woman @AOC really got up there and did that raggedy accent in front of all those black people.
PSA: Not all black people are improper. Not all black people fold clothes and drive buses.— Jorden 👑 (@_realjgoodwin) April 5, 2019
And then some noted it was awfully close to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “I don’t feel no ways tired” speech:
Hillary 2.0 y’all. ===> https://t.co/A2qo8dDq35 https://t.co/4i5qQLNbNZ
— Lawrence Jones III (@LawrenceBJones3) April 5, 2019
So, again, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could have just let this slide, the same way she could have just let negative polls slide. We really wouldn’t be talking about this if she didn’t have a “how dare you”-style response, so here you go:
As much as the right wants to distort & deflect, I am from the Bronx. I act & talk like it, *especially* when I’m fired up and especially when I’m home.
It is so hurtful to see how every aspect of my life is weaponized against me, yet somehow asserted as false at the same time.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 5, 2019
First off, I’m from the New York City area, so I know where the Bronx is. I also know where the South is. They’re not terribly close. Furthermore, without consulting a sociolinguistic study regarding dialects in the New York City region, I don’t remember any of my African-American friends talking in a Southern accent like this.
This isn’t a conspiracy. This is merely pointing out a linguistic incongruence that probably would have been overlooked by most people had Ocasio-Cortez not drawn attention to it by saying how hurt she was and accusing anyone who mentioned it of engaging in Infowars-y nonsense.
As for this sounding like her speeches at the Women’s March and addressing the Kavanaugh allegations, clips or it didn’t happen.
Here’s a speech Ocasio-Cortez gave in October Boston about the confirmation controversy surrounding then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Ocasio-Cortez’s turn comes about the 55-minute mark.) There’s not anything like the Southern drawl that was on display on Friday.
Here’s her speech on Kavanaugh https://t.co/4odidt2LAy
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 5, 2019
Here’s her speech from a Jan. 19 Women’s March event in New York City. There might be a tiny trace of AOC’s new accent, but that just proves she might have decided to start working on getting a more down-home sound sometime before Friday. It doesn’t make her latest intonations authentic.
Here’s her Women’s March speechhttps://t.co/tlPvYBwuHT
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 5, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t bother to post clips that might prove her case better, so it appears at this point her tweet is mere deflection. If Ocasio-Cortez has more evidence, she’s certainly at liberty to post it. Without said evidence, I’m going to file this one under “outright lie.”
Let’s be clear here: I’m not particularly outraged that Ocasio-Cortez spoke in a Southern accent before the National Action Network, although I can understand how people can feel exceptionally patronized. My reaction was more of a laugh and a mild cringe.
If Ocasio-Cortez had decided either not to respond to this or laughed it off, this wouldn’t have really registered as a story.
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez portrayed herself as a victim and said anyone who took exception with the speech could “step off.” After calling people who had an issue with her accent a conspiracy theorist, she talked about how hurtful it was.
Mind you, this isn’t the first time the same thing has happened; Ocasio-Cortez has actually self-victimized over polls, which are literally just raw data regarding how people responded to questions.
It’s unseemly but understandable when college students act triggered over microaggressions.
When you’re an elected representative and one of the most well-known members of your political party and you’re acting the same way, that’s a different issue entirely.
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