Jen Psaki’s final day as White House press secretary was an unmitigated disaster.
In one fell swoop, with one simple question shouted from across the news briefing room, the Biden administration’s credibility on “racial equity” and “anti-racism” was utterly torn asunder.
As Psaki was finishing up her final day — thanking the administration and White House reporters while fighting back tears — Simon Ateba, the chief White House correspondent for Today News Africa, shouted one damning question from the back of the room.
Psaki is well-known for only answering questions from reporters sitting in the first two rows of the briefing room. Various establishment outlets — hand-selected by the White House Correspondents’ Association — are included on the White House press room seating chart.
Reporters from outlets such as Fox News, CNN, NPR and The New York Times sit in the first few rows. Reporters from organizations not on the approved list are forced to stand in the back of the room and are often not called on for questions.
“Why don’t you take questions from across the room?” Ateba asked on Friday. “Why don’t you take questions from across the room? Because that’s not what you’ve been able to do for the past 15 months.”
Is this “equity”?
An African reporter forced to sit in the back of the White House press briefing room tried to ask Psaki a question & was completely ignored.
“Why don’t you take questions from across the room?”
Psaki and an NPR reporter later urged him to remain silent. pic.twitter.com/N71gpQFUam
— Michael Austin (@mikeswriting) May 13, 2022
Psaki completely ignored Ateba.
Minutes later, he shouted again.
“Jen, can I ask you a question from the back?” Ateba said. “Jen, can I ask you a question from the back?”
Both Psaki and NPR’s Tamara Keith later urged Ateba to remain silent, according to the New York Post.
“Simon, if you can respect your colleagues and other media and reporters in here, that would be greatly appreciated,” Psaki said.
Strange, I thought this — a white woman silencing a black man — was considered an act of racist aggression?
Then again, I guess in the eyes of social justice warriors it’s OK as long as that black man doesn’t toe the Democratic Party line.
Ateba has never been one to do so, so it’s no surprise that the Biden administration has attempted to silence him.
Back in December, Ateba got into an argument with Psaki over the Biden administration’s sweeping travel ban, later telling Fox News that if former President Donald Trump had instituted such a ban, he would have been labeled a racist.
Time and time again, the Biden administration has touted its goal of racial “equity” — also known as equality of outcomes, the antithesis of meritocracy and actual equality of opportunity — wherein minority groups are prioritized and given special advantages based solely on the color of their skin.
Does the Biden administration truly care about all black lives?
But that isn’t quite what the Biden administration, BLM-style activists and the modern Democratic Party stand for.
To them, “equity” is only acceptable if the beneficiaries fall in line with a big-government agenda.
In other words, to them, the only black lives that matter are the ones they agree with.
