Despite flailing her hands within inches of the face of Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York during a confrontation outside the U.S. Capitol building on May 17, attention-seeking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia labeled him as “aggressive” and riled up her MAGA supporters with what Bowman called a “bullhorn to put a target” on his back.
The two lawmakers were arguing outside the Capitol building in Washington about embattled Rep. George Santos of New York, and the exchange was caught on video shared by The Hill.
Greene repeatedly got in Bowman’s personal space and waved her hand in his face while he protested that Santos be expelled from Congress due to his fraud and money laundering indictments.
“Save the party,” he said. “No more QAnon, no more MAGA, no more debt ceiling nonsense,” prompting Greene to reply, “Impeach Biden.”
The following day, Greene said she felt threatened by Bowman while claiming he has a history of being aggressive.
“What concerns me about Jamal Bowman is he has a history of aggression, not just towards others, but towards me in particular, and I am very concerned about it,” she said at a news conference where she announced she is introducing articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden. “But I will tell you what’s on video, Jamaal Bowman, shouting at the top of his lungs. Cursing, calling me a horrible name, calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to.”
Greene’s incendiary remarks did not end there, and she compared being called a white supremacist to being called the N-word. “That is like calling a person of color the N-word, which should never happen,” claimed Greene. “Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that, and that is wrong.”
The Georgia lawmaker also claimed that she felt “threatened” by Greene and his “physical mannerisms.”
“I feel threatened by him. He not only led a mob there, but his boisterous lies, and I’ll tell you another thing he said outside there. He was saying, ‘Save your party.’ I kept telling him, ‘No. Save the country…”
“I am very concerned about Jamaal Bowman,” said Greene. “And I think he is someone that people should watch.”
Bowman quickly called Greene out for putting a “target” on his back by labeling him “aggressive” and portraying him as an angry Black man.
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was snatched from his bed in the night and lynched in 1955 over the lies of a racist white woman in Mississippi after she claimed the teen had acted inappropriately toward her. Bowman mentioned Till in his response to Greene’s false accusations.
“She’s not even using a dog whistle. She’s using a bullhorn to put a target on my back to the people that she refers to as ‘MAGA people’ out there who might want to cause harm,” said Bowman. “This is the reason Mike Brown was killed. This is one of the reasons why Emmett Till was killed. And throughout history, Black men have continually been characterized as aggressive because, one, because of our skin color, but two, because we happen to be outspoken and passionate about certain issues.”
Bowman believes Greene purposely mischaracterized his actions.
“It’s reckless and dangerous, what she said,” he continued. “I never invaded her personal space. I was laughing and gregarious the entire time. How is that intimidating?”
“She knows what she’s doing when she does that, and unfortunately, white supremacists historically, this is what they do. They try to dehumanize Black people, Black skin and the Black humanity so that they can be, you know, more likely to be targeted, or harmed.”
Jon Cooper, the former Long Island Campaign Chair for President Barack Obama, shared a mashup video of Bowman speaking about the salty Georgia congresswoman’s insinuations about Bowman. Cooper said Greene endangered Bowman’s life with her racist rhetoric.
“BREAKING: Dem Rep. Jamaal Bowman just DESTROYED Marjorie Taylor Greene for putting his life at risk. MTG sent her racist MAGA cult after Jamaal with lies, but he’s got receipts – all on video. See for yourself!”
The racist trope of the angry Black man also contributes to Black males being more likely to be killed during interactions with law enforcement, according to research by the American Psychological Association.
Montclair State University researchers conducted a series of experiments in which they showed 950 participants photographs of white and Black males who were all of equal height and weight. They were asked to estimate the height, weight, strength and overall muscularity of the men.
The participants assumed the Black men were larger, stronger and more muscular than their white counterparts who were the same size. They also believed that the Black men could cause more harm in a hypothetical altercation “and, troublingly, that police would be more justified in using force to subdue them, even if the men were unarmed,” lead researcher John Paul Wilson concluded.
Reactions to the video favored Bowman on social media.
“Congress Karen,” added one. “Marjorie Traitor Greene pulling a Karen,” echoed another user.
Another user aptly called Greene, who is an enthusiastic Trump supporter, “evil.”
One Twitter user summed things up by writing. “In the words of my husband as he watched this, ‘She’s a pig.'”
