It was, simply put, shameful.
During debate on the floor of the North Carolina House Wednesday, a white legislator interrupted his Black colleague, asking if he would have attended an Ivy League school had he not been “an athlete or a minority.”
Rep. Abe Jones, a Democrat from Raleigh, was debating the controversial private school voucher bill when he was interrupted by Rep. Jeff McNeely, a Iredell County Republican, who rose to ask Jones a question.
“I understand that you went to public schools and you went to Harvard and Harvard Law,” McNeely said to Jones. “And the question, I guess, is, would you have been able to maybe achieve this if you were not an athlete or a minority or any of these things, but you were a student trapped in a school that the slowest — you know, in the wild, we’ll say the slowest gazelle does not survive, but yet the herd moves at that pace. So the brightest child sometimes is held back.”
Seriously?
The exchange was shared widely online and even caught the eye of MSNBC. McNeely did apologize for his remark, saying it “did not come out right” and assuring his respect for his colleague. Jones accepted his apology, but later said that the “thinly-veiled racial aspect of the encounter is inexcusable.”
And it is. How, exactly, did McNeely mean for it to come out? The line of questioning is inherently problematic, because it appears to presume that opportunities are afforded on the basis of race rather than qualifications.
Unfortunately, that was not the only appalling comment made by a Republican on the House floor this week. On Tuesday, as the House debated a veto override of the abortion bill, Rep. Diamond Staton-Williams spoke bravely about her own experience with abortion in 2002.
“I am someone who has grown up in the church and believes in the power of God,” Staton-Williams said. “I know that I go through trials and tribulations. I know we all will. And I know that, ultimately, I have been given the freedom of mind to make decisions for myself.”
As she was speaking, Rep. Keith Kidwell quipped in the back of the chamber that Staton-Williams must have meant the Church of Satan. His remark was overheard and reported by WRAL.
Really?
To disparage your colleague and her faith when she is speaking about her most personal experiences is disgraceful. To suggest that your colleague only achieved what he did because his race may have afforded him special treatment is disgusting.
Each incident reflected a lack of respect for their fellow representatives as well as the offices they hold.
The incidents prompted House Minority Leader Robert Reives to issue a statement jointly with Jones and Staton-Williams, in which Reives said he felt “compelled to speak out when members of our caucus are targeted with unfair, untrue or hurtful remarks.”
There will be plenty of people who defend McNeely and Kidwell’s remarks. They’ll say it was out of character, or that they didn’t really mean it, or that it must have just slipped out. Some may go as far as to say that they were right.
That’s not true, of course. But it reflects a disturbing trend in political discourse. As they amass even more power and influence, Republicans are feeling emboldened enough to say the quiet parts out loud. Gone is the sense of decorum that was once considered sacred inside legislative chambers. Gone are the boundaries — at least some of them — that caused people to think twice before saying something that others might consider shameful.
That’s not to say that all Republicans behave like this. House Speaker Tim Moore appropriately cut off McNeely and did not allow him to finish his remarks, and Jones told WRAL that several Republicans came up to apologize to him after session as well. Good.
Still, too many Republicans are emboldened to just say what they think, because that’s been modeled for them by other officials and cheered by voters. After all, in North Carolina, this is the party whose lieutenant governor who says reprehensible things about women, the LGBTQ+ community and others — and who berated a female lawmaker outside the Senate chamber after she criticized his anti-LGBTQ remarks. And, nationally, this is Donald Trump’s party.
But it is a shame. We should — and do — expect better.
