02/10/2021
Last week, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took to Instagram Live to share an uncomfortable experience she had with a Capitol Police officer during the insurrection early last month. Her account of the encounter received widespread attention, and thousands rallied behind her in support. But no more than 48 hours later, naysayers challenged AOC — calling her recollection of events an “overreaction,” and #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett quickly began trending on Twitter. An article was released by a conservative online blogsite attempting to discredit AOC, to which the congresswoman defended herself and her initial statement. While some were appalled by the attempts made to poke holes in AOC’s experience, the act of discrediting women of color and the validity of their experiences is as age-old as apple pie and baseball. Historically, women have endured various forms of retaliation when daring to stand up for themselves, and last week’s attack against AOC was no different.
Like many other GOP members who shared their experiences during the attempted insurrection on January 6 that left five dead and dozens injured, last Monday night the New York House Member shared with her Instagram followers her experience during the attempted insurrection. In an emotional testimony, Representative Ocasio-Cortez described an encounter with Capitol Police, who found her hiding in a bathroom after rioters stormed the Capitol building. RedState, a conservative online news platform, released an article responding to AOC, dismissing her claims as an overreaction and argued that her office was located in another building very close to the Capitol building. The article went onto state, “the Capitol Police were likely trying to evacuate the building quickly, it’s possible the officer was focused on getting people out quickly so likely didn’t have time for all the niceties.” AOC quickly defended herself against the article on Twitter.
“This is the latest manipulative take on the right. They are manipulating the fact that most people don’t know the layout the Capitol complex. We were all on the Capitol complex - the attack wasn’t just on the dome. The bombs Trump supporters planted surrounded our offices too.” - Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
Some argue that AOC critics are not considering the full scope of the Capitol riots and the events leading up to January 6. Other GOP members across the aisle have shared experiencing similar feelings of anxiety and terror – some of whom were directly in the line of danger and others who were not. Imagine working in your office on a random Wednesday, and a group of rioters break into your place of employment with guns, zip ties, and knives. Or you get word of a large group of armed vandals breaking into a building directly adjacent to yours, and you fear they are on their way to your building next. It is not far-fetched for a person to feel some level of fear and anxiety. This is especially true for individuals who have experienced previous trauma, such as AOC, who also shared on Instagram that she is a sexual abuse survivor.
Furthermore, AOC has received numerous threats against her life leading up to January 6 and was warned by other Congress members to be “careful” on the day of the rally. In fact, Garret Miller, a man from Texas who was referred to as a domestic terror threat by a Dallas County judge, was arrested late last month for bragging about his involvement in the riots and for tweeting, “Assassinate AOC” just a few days before he and others stormed the Capitol. Ironically, he also threatened Senator Chuck Schumer and encouraged the hanging death of a Capitol Police officer. It appears that AOC’s alarm was not misdirected and was well within reason.
In a similar twist of fate, last December, one of Google’s most renowned artificial intelligence ethicist and computer researchers, Timnit Gebru, Ph.D., made news when she accused the company of terminating her after sending an internal email to a diversity-and-inclusion group at Google. In the email, Dr. Gebru stated that she felt the company was attempting to silence her over research that directly implicated Google. The study in question investigated the risks associated with developing computer systems to create unique text based on the analysis of large databases of human photonics and language.
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