Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can’t seem to get out of her own way when it comes to racial, ethnic, and cultural differences among Americans, though she’s now touring the country with the aged Bernie Sanders on the “Fight Oligarchy Tour” while flying in a private jet.
An official account managed by Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her staff is facing backlash for capitalizing the racial identifiers “Black” and “Latino” while intentionally leaving “white” in lowercase. The post, shared by the congresswoman’s official “@TeamAOC” campaign account on X, featured a video from the recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, during which she and ‘Feel the Bern’ Sanders have been traveling to traditionally red states to hold anti-Trump rallies.
“Do not let them trick you into thinking we are enemies,” reads the post, which was accompanied by a video from a tour stop in Boise, Idaho. “Do not let them trick you into thinking that we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino. We are one.” Says the pro-Palestinian lawmaker who, like the rest of her “Squad” members, hates Israel and barely contains her anti-Semitism. But enough of that.
The post received widespread criticism and ridicule on social media. Many users highlighted the hypocrisy of the caption, as the campaign deliberately capitalized all racial identities except for one, despite claiming to promote unity. “If we are one, why did you capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’?” wrote one X user in a follow-up that received more likes than the initial post. “We see you, you f***ing racist POS. Don’t act like it was an accident that you left the word ‘White’ uncapitalized,” reads another popular reply. “You literally just separated us into ‘Black and white and Latino,’” wrote psychology professor Geoffrey Miller. “And you capitalized ‘Black’ and ‘Latino’ but not ‘white’, implying that White is not a legitimate racial identity. We see right through your vacuous word games.”
The controversy over capitalizing certain racial categories while leaving “white” in lowercase has been a heated topic since 2020, when several outlets and major style guides adopted the practice. The Associated Press Stylebook—followed by hundreds of publications and blogs worldwide—explained its reasoning a little over two months after the death of George Floyd. But that in and of itself was overtly anti-White and racist. That AOC and her ‘social media team’ would adopt the same strategy proves, again, that Democrats aren’t serious about unity, and that their politics of division remains the status quo for a party whose approval rating is worse than that of a used car salesman.