Screenshot : @FiringLineShow ( Twitter )

If there’s a redeeming quality for racists, it’s that they’re generally crystal clear on where they stand. Their flawed logic is brazen and up front. They do a terrible job of concealing their bigotry and xenophobia, so why even try to? They call me a “shining monkey” or a “nigger” to my face so I can prepare accordingly and protect myself as needed. Shoutout to blatant racists.


It’s the indirect, low-key racists that keep me up at night.

The ones that hide in broad daylight behind a badge. The ones that decline small business loans or teach our children about themselves during Black History Month. The ones who were up in arms because they saw themselves in Get Out.


The ones that are the lifeblood of the current White House administration.

Once upon a time, serial misogynist Stephen Moore—Donald Trump’s No. 1 draft pick for the 2019 Federal Reserve Board—did that thing that white people tend to do where they make a racially insensitive joke in a room full of their blanched peers. And it’s hilarious, right? Because who in that room will stop cracking up long enough to tell them otherwise?

But when you’re a politician or public figure, there are these things called cameras that often times record your every move. So if you dig in your nose or get a “public housing” joke off about our forever president Barack Obama, sooner or later you’re gonna have to answer for that shit.

In a soon-to-be released interview on PBS’ Firing Line With Margaret Hoover, Moore is asked about the time he joked about kicking a “black family out of public housing” after the 2016 election. And it went about as well as a Fugees reunion album.


“So, you know, that, that is a joke that I always made about, you know, Obama lives in, you know, the president lives in public housing,” Moore says. “But I didn’t mean it like a black person did.”


Stephen Moore? Perpetuating negative black stereotypes? Never!

Everyone gets kicked out of public housing, right?

But then it got worse. Because then he does that thing that white people do where they either cite or trot out another black person to co-sign their bullshit.


“I just meant that, you know, you know, being in the White House, you know, for example,” he says, signaling he’s about to force-feed Hoover some bullshit. “When I was working with a lot of women in families who were involved in the education voucher program, you know, here in D. C. , and people would say, well, you know, and these were, these were blacks who would say, you know, ‘Why does Barack Obama get to send his kids to any school that he wants to and we can’t?’ And they’d say, ‘He lives in public housing,’ and it was just kind of a joke, and that was referring...”

Yes, he really said this. And after looking at him like he was stupid, Hoover called a spade a spade.


“The optics though,” Hoover says. “Of a conservative white man talking about kicking a black man out of public housing have a particular resonance, especially in this moment.”

“Right,” Moore says flatly. “So I shouldn’t have said.”

I mean, yeah. That probably would’ve been a good idea.

But as we’re all well aware, white men like Moore aren’t an anomaly, they’re the norm.


They’re the ones that hide in broad daylight behind a badge. The ones that decline small business loan s or teach our children about themselves during Black History Month. The ones who were up in arms because they saw themselves in Get Out.

The ones that keep me up at night.

The ones that are the lifeblood of the current White House administration.