Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), a member of the squad, highlighted the bigotry of soft expectations with a Saturday evening tweet promoting The Freedom to Move Act, which she introduced with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) last April.
Black and Latinx commuters are disproportionately criminalized by fare evasion policies.
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) March 26, 2022
Congress must pass my #FreedomtoMove Act to grant Black and brown riders the freedom to navigate their community without fear.
The legislation, as laid out in an explainer from Rep. Pressley's office, "would provide public transit agencies with the support they need to provide farefree transit and handle their long-overdue system improvements." Not only are there buzzwords, though, claiming that the legislation would do things like "make transportation more...green...for transit riders," public transit systems also have to decriminalize fare jumpers.
"Grantees would be required to work in partnership with community advocates and stakeholders to report on how resources will be used to improve the reliability of transit service for low-income and historically underserved communities including ways the grantee will improve connectivity to critical services and reduce commute times," the explainer reads, going on to spell out specifically how "Grantees are also required to do an evaluation of current fare evasion policies and how they plan to eliminate such policies and end the criminalization of fare evasion."
This was what Pressley chose to highlight, honing in those "Black and Latinx commuters" who take part in the criminal activity that is fare jumping.
It's worth noting, since Pressley won't, that fare evasion costs cities millions in dollars. In the first three months of 2021, costing the MTA in New York City $56 million for that period alone. A report from earlier this year found that the MBTA, in Pressley's city of Boston, may have lost up to $35 million in a year from fare evasion.
As our friends at Twitchy picked up on, many replied over Twitter taking issue with how Pressley was making it about race, in addition to calling on people to pay their fare. Pressley's tweet looks to have been ratioed, with 1,555 replies and 278 likes. Of the 489 retweets, 426 are quote tweets, most of them mocking Pressley.
If they don't pay the fare, they are stealing, which makes them a thief and therfore a criminal.
— Battle for Republic (@battle4Republic) March 26, 2022
How do you not understand how the laws work?
Also, your law is racist if you have carve outs based on the color of the offender.
Soft bigotry of low expectations on clear display
— RIP Stinky T. Cat (@stinkytcat1) March 26, 2022
Brothers and sisters of all races and creeds, join us as we make fun of people who unironically use the word Latinx https://t.co/HFEKNUmo2I
— William He (@williamhe__) March 27, 2022
the real crime is "Latinx"
— s.tejas (@blankerism) March 27, 2022
The squad member's use of the term "Latinx" just makes the tweet all the more ridiculous. As Julio and Spencer have covered, the Left's use of the term is failing miserably. Further, while Pressley is Black, it's mostly white liberals who are behind the term, according to a poll from earlier this year. Just 3 percent of registered voters use the term, and less than 1 percent of Hispanics do.
Look y’all. Hispanic, Latin American are gender neutral. So we have already gender neutral options to describe the Latino community. Adding an x and creating a new word comes off as performative.
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) December 6, 2021
Pressley's Democratic colleague from Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego, tweeted last December that his office is not allowed to use the term in official communications. His tweet came out as a poll from POLITICO revealed that only 2 percent of Hispanics use the term.