Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in Washington, D.C., in August 2010 Photo : Chip Somodevilla ( Getty Images )

Although I have spent 99.9 percent of my years as a black male, during the course of my lifetime, I can remember a few rare occurrences when I had brief out-of-body experiences.


For instance, one day I stepped onto the screened-in porch on the back of my house and came face-to-face with a fully grown bald eagle. Now, an ornithologist would probably dispute my account and describe the bird as a harmless little hummingbird, but that lying-ass bird scientist was not there; I was. And it felt like a bald eagle. Or maybe a hawk. I would say it was a triceratops, but I don’t think they live in this part of the country.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that when the eagle-humming-hawk flew toward me, I elicited a high-pitched soprano scream that could only come from a European woman trained in opera. For a brief moment, I was an Italian mezzo-soprano.


Another time, I was riding in a car with two or three white boys who were on my basketball team (or, more accurately, I was the ringer on their church-league team) when a car ran a stop sign and almost hit us. The white kid hit the brakes and instinctively screamed, “Nigger!”

Even though I was only 15 years old, to this day, I still regret my response. All I could muster up to say was “How dare you!” I know, at that moment, I sounded like a 53-year-old white woman.

Well, today, Friday, I had another experience. For a brief second, I was transported back to 1998 and became a 16-year-old teenager when I screamed, “Oh, no he didn’t!” at my computer screen. Soon after that happened, I was magically transformed into a 68-year-old church lady observing a particularly good sermon when I yelled, “Amen” at my laptop at least two or three times.

Then I caught the Holy Ghost and started shouting.

It all started when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was on the floor of the House of Representatives during the discussion of Republicans’ efforts to roll back Obama-era regulations that prevent auto lenders from discriminating against black and Hispanic customers.


As she was talking, Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) began telling Waters that he felt offended.

“We are trying to make sure that we’re making America great every day in every way,” said the representative from Pennsylvania’s white district. “And the best way to do that is to stop talking about discrimination and start talking about the nation.”


“What does that even mean?” I yelled at my computer screen. He really sounded like a bullshit, empty-headed Dr. Seuss rhyme only a dumb white person would understand.


I could feel Auntie Maxine about to go off on Congressman Whitey Whitefaceintosh, and I yelled, “I am here for it.” I don’t even say those words. I never knew what being “here for it” meant! But just as she was about to go off, Rep. D’White Mann sensed Waters’ Negro powers starting to rise and begged her to yield.

“Now I will not yield,” Waters told the carbon-dioxide-flavored congressman.

If you listened closely, you could hear the whitest response of “OK” ever recorded when Kelly lowly whimpered. He sounded like a puppy-shaped balloon being deflated after a children’s party.


But it wasn’t over. When the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, which was holding the hearing, tried to rein her in, Auntie Maxine went off on him, too! She literally let Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) know that anybody can get it.

By then I was in a full-fledged Holy Ghost dance. I’m sure I heard shouting music and everything! (For the white people reading this, “shouting music” is ... well, umm ... it’s like if you took polka music, mixed it with Prince’s “Kiss” and anointed it with oil.)


Anyway, that’s how I watched Maxine Waters rip Mike Kelly’s Mr. Smithers-like ass to shreds. If there’s one thing we know about Auntie Maxine, it is this:

She will not yield.