During the Salem Witch Trials, er, the Republican hearing trying to frame the Southern Poverty Law Center as a racist organization, the Republicans made a grave mistake. They let Rep Jasmine Crockett loose on the invited panelists, and she brought the hellfire and brimstone.

Crockett started by asking a simple question: Are the Proud Boys a white supremacist group? Dr. Carol Swain answered by trying to sell a book. Tyler O'Neil of The Daily Signal flat-out denied it. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, smugly said that he wasn't on the SPLC mailing list. That was a big mistake. Crockett sought clarification by saying, "Oh, it just seemed like you were saying because you haven't received their mail, you've only received the mail of white supremacists."

Crockett asked the panel whether neo-Nazis were white supremacists. Swain kept trying to sell her book. Perkins, who did not wear his white robe or hood for the hearing, tried to deflect before finally answering yes.

Then Crockett really got going with one helluva glorious rant:

Thank God and Jesus Christ, I didn't think we were gonna get there! Oh my gosh! Let me be clear. Proud Boys are freaking white supremacists. Neo-nazis are too. And this president, who loves to coddle White supremacists, has decided that they should be given checks. The reasons that I pointed to those particular organizations is because you can go and read.

I don't know how many articles as Dr. Swain wants people to read up on. I'm gonna be clear. I've read my fair share of books. I do have my fair share of degrees.

It is clear that the neo-nazis, as well as the Proud Boys, joined in on January 6. Yet this slush fund that they keep talking about is specifically to give them money. So, how dare this majority sit here and try to lecture, try to lecture this organization about money? Now, we're not talking about taxpaying dollars as we are in that slush fund.

But you're telling me the two billion dollars in the same country that I'm sure some of y'all would struggle with, whether or not the enslavement of black people was good or bad, I'm not even gonna go there and ask all the question cuz y'all struggled with defining that these people were white supremacists. But this country still hasn't thought their reparations made sense for black folk in this country. But at the same time, they've decided that people that are in organizations that are absolutely white supremacist should get our tax dollars because they decided to tear apart or attempt to tear apart our democracy. They are being rewarded.

These are people that went through our criminal justice system. When people on that side of the aisle claim that they love law and order, they went through it; they either entered pleas of guilty or they were found guilty, and this president, on day one, his priority was not around racism. It was around doing things like letting them go and now putting money in their pockets We haven't had one hearing on white supremacy yet when we look at things like the killing of Ahmaud Arbery George Floyd Brianna Taylor the nine worshippers who were murdered at the mother Emmanuel a me church the 23 people murdered in 2019 during a shooting at Walmart and El Paso the 10 people murdered during the 2022 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. All of these were murdered by white supremacists who were empowered by the Republican Party's racist rhetoric and policies.

This is the same party that wants to drag us back to the Jim Crow era. Some say that there aren't poll taxes, and I guess it's because they're not listing the amount of money, but when you tell somebody that they've got to go and pay for something, say, like a passport that costs over a hundred dollars, in order to be able to vote, that looks like a poll tax to me.

Some of y'all need to read up on your history books, the very same ones that the Republicans have decided that people should not hear about because you don't want real history taught in our Schools because you're afraid that it's gonna hurt people's feelings to know that their ancestors were so savage that they would enslave black folk You don't want them to understand why the 14th amendment mattered then and it matters today You don't want them to understand that when they draw these racist lines and tell black folk that they shouldn't have Representation in this country that it is against the Constitution.

Preach it, Sister!