If you were watching the second half of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, you got to watch some super sad white tears being shed as Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina took about 10 minutes of the committee’s time to make everyone say he wasn’t a racist. Meadows was responding to the kinda strange thing he did by bringing African-American Trump administration staffer Lynne Patton as a “personal” guest to sit behind him during the testimony, as well as read her personal statement assuring the world that Donald Trump wasn’t a racist.
Democratic representatives on the Committee, many of who are women of color, pointed out that this was a very odd, vaguely racist thing to do. At one point, after Rep. Rashida Tlaib made a statement saying as much, Rep. Meadows freaked out, said that he had people of color in his family and that his work buddy was African-American Rep. Elijah Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight Committee. It was a lot of handwringing and the internet did its magic to provide everyone with video of Mr. Meadows running for Congress back in 2011, saying this to a a bunch of people:
Meadows: It’s interesting, that when the more we find out, the more we realize how wrong the direction we are going. And so what we are going to do is take back our country. 2012 is the time we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is. We’re gonna do it.
“Or wherever it is”? Soooooo, listen, being racist doesn’t simply mean you live circa 1855 as a plantation owner in North Carolina. Having black friends at work doesn’t immunize you from bigotry. There were a lot of slave owners who thought they were friends with all kinds of African Americans. It’s clear Rep. Mark Meadows doesn’t like being called out for his racism, and he probably doesn’t want to be racist on some level. But hoping and wanting and liking doesn’t make you less racist: Doing less racist shit makes you less racist.