Politics
NEW: Jasmine Crockett Faces New Controversy After Appearing To Endorse Violence In Stunning Speech
A stunning call for violence by “Squad” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-MA) has critics pouncing after she appeared to call on her audience to take up arms against their haters.
The Texas Democrat’s jaw-dropping statement came while she delivered the commencement address for graduates of Tougaloo College, a historically black university in Jackson, Mississippi. For about 20 minutes, young minds listened as she encouraged them to learn how to “use a chair” in public life — and she didn’t mean for sitting still.
“There are going to be people that tell you that you don’t belong, and I am here to tell you over and over and over that you absolutely belong,” Crockett said in a video of her remarks posted online. “There are people that are gonna tell you that there is not a table in which there is a seat for you, but I am here to remind you of Montgomery and those folding chairs. Let me tell you that we know how to use a chair, whether we’re pulling it up or we’re doing something else with it. Let me be the first one to tell you that I know that y’all are ready to put your boots on the ground.”
The reference appeared to recall a 2023 brawl in Montgomery between groups of white and black men at a boating dock that, while apparently not race-motivated, nonetheless drew national attention for its optics. Video from the incident showed one of the black men using a folding chair to attack another participant.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Crockett took aim at Republicans in Washington, D.C., and in the media for using the term “DEI hire” to justify firings in the federal government, a quip that she denounced as racist.
“Instead of publicly calling us the n-word, they use racist epithets and suggest that we’re ghetto or unqualified or diversity hires, even though we’re all more, oftentimes than not, more educated and qualified than they are,” Crockett said, according to the Daily Caller. “I have news for you: These attacks are not new, because Jim Crow never died. He just lied in wait.”
Crockett, 44, has emerged as a more combative face of the “Squad,” the informal title given to a coalition of liberal minority lawmakers in the Democratic Party. Unlike Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has parlayed her progressive fame into carefully calculated stump speeches alongside establishment figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Crockett is far less polished or careful about letting her remarks veer into incendiary territory.
Last month, she attempted to walk back remarks where she referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as “Governor Hot Wheels” during a public appearance, a dig that was widely viewed as mocking his use of a wheelchair. On cable news, she hasn’t shied away from racially-charged rants against conservative commentators like CNN’s Scott Jennings — moments that are made-for-TV, but may dent her ability to rise above the establishment ceiling in her own party.
