Congresswoman Nancy Mace slammed for ‘white privilege’ remarks

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is being called out for her comments on race regarding President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.

Michael B. Moore, the Democratic candidate aiming to unseat Mace from her seat in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in the 2024 election, said the Republican’s comments were “inappropriate, profane and beneath a sitting representative in the United States.”

Last week, the two-term congresswoman called Hunter Biden “the epitome of white privilege” after he made a surprise appearance at the committee hearing.

Rep. Mace’s comments came after the younger Biden failed to comply with a subpoena to testify in the impeachment inquiry hearing of President Biden launched last month.

Moore, a former business professional who served as CEO of the International African American Museum, told theGrio he was “disappointed but not surprised” by Mace’s comments. 

“Nancy has been in a mode for quite a while where she pulls these stunts that she knows is going to grab headlines and get her front and center in front of the press,” he said.

Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross told theGrio, “I was surprised that she could even utter the term ‘white privilege’ out of her mouth, to be honest.”

Cross said that, more broadly, the Republican Party has shied away from mentioning the term white privilege “in any context.”  

“They don’t want to believe that it exists. It could be right in front of them, and they deny it over and over again,” she said.

“So, for that to even be uttered out of a white person’s mouth from a party that doesn’t believe in white privilege was very interesting to me,” Cross explained. “It’s frustrating because of the context she utilized it in.”

Svante Myrick, president of the People For the American Way, told theGrio that Mace used the term to be “provocative.”

The former mayor of Ithaca, New York, argued that the congresswoman was “the most privileged person there.”

“She was turning that privilege around and using it as a sword to poke down at other people, something that white supremacists do all too often,” he added.

U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also slammed Mace for her remarks.

“It was a spit in the face, at least of mine, a Black woman,” said Crockett, “for you to talk about what white privilege looks like, especially from that side of the aisle.”

She quoted former House speaker and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who said, “When you look at the Democrats, they actually look like America. When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive county club in America.”

Cross said it was important for people of color to call out Mace because “these are the same people who are fighting for policies of equity day in and day out across this country.”

“When they bring up white privilege, when they bring up the simple fact that when faced with criminal justice, education inequity, health care inequity, white privilege exists in these systems,” said Crockett. They are completely ignored and told they are lying irrespective to data that shows the exact opposite.”

She continued, “This word does exist, and it does have meaning, but the context is extremely vital in understanding why it was used wrongfully by Nancy Mace.”

Myrick said of Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez that “it’s important that members like [them] are in the room.”

“Comments like that are said in boardrooms and committee rooms all over this country, every day,” he said. “I’ve been in some of those rooms as a legislator and as a mayor.”

He continued, “To have them in the room to check in real time the rapid ignorance that was on display [by] Congresswoman Mace is so important for all of the kids and citizens watching these committee hearings across the country.”

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