Rep. Jasmine Crockett would reconsider her ‘Gov. Hot Wheels’ talk if she met Ezra Spinelli | Opinion

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, should meet Ezra Spinelli. And so should Crockett’s numerous fans who are excusing or explaining away what she said about Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

Crockett represents Texas’s 30th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s a rising Democratic star, and with good reason. She’s fierce, unbothered and willing to fight during a time when we need more fighters to stand up for the vulnerable and for democracy itself. There are too few Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans doing the same.

She’s tussled with Rep. Nancy Mace, who represents South Carolina’s first district, among other hyper-partisan Republicans, and has been on the right side of policies designed to help the neediest Americans. On Wednesday, she was correctly defending free speech and freedom of the press during a Republican-led hearing designed to undercut the credibility of all-important public radio.

I’m a fan.

That’s why it was disappointing to watch her attack Abbott’s disability rather than his policies. She did that instead of emphasizing the cruelty he’s shown to undocumented immigrants, moving them around the country as though they were little more than chess pieces rather than fellow human beings who should be treated as such.

She referred to Abbott, who has used a wheelchair since 1984, as “Governor Hot Wheels.”

She said it at a Human Rights Campaign dinner, no less. The crowd laughed.

Crockett later said she wasn’t talking about his disability.

“I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by Black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable,” she tweeted after her comments made national news.

But her explanation doesn’t pass the smell test.

That’s why it would be cool if she got to meet Spinelli, whose smile recently broke the internet.

He’s the cute little boy in a wheelchair whose mom caught him on video in the Myrtle Beach Target. The young Spinelli beamed when he saw an advertisement in the store that featured a girl with a disability.

“There’s a girl in a wheelchair, just like me,” he said excitedly.

No one has done a better job of explaining the importance of representation — the need to see yourself warmly embraced by society at large – better than Spinelli. Even I, a 52-year-old Black man, felt as though a 4-year-old white boy was speaking for me. I talk with a severe stutter, and it’s often hard to get non-stutterers to understand what stutterers face.

Spinelli was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that prevents the spinal cord from developing normally during pregnancy. It’s extremely rare, with about four children out of 10,000 born with the condition every year in South Carolina.

Spinelli is rare indeed, in the best way. And for what felt like a brief moment despite about 20 million people watching it, Spinelli’s video was a glimpse of what this country could be, and every now and again becomes.

It was a reminder that disability doesn’t have to lead to perpetual ostracization, that difference can lead to divine unification rather than dangerous division. But only if we let it. Only if we don’t give into our darker angels, even during a time as uncertain and unmooring as this.

Crockett is often conscientious, even during contentious exchanges with bombastic foes. She unapologetically speaks up for the underprivileged despite political opponents hurling veiled — and sometimes not-so-veiled — racist insults that suggest the way she speaks is “ghetto.”

That’s why it would be great if she could meet Spinelli. His mother’s decision to share that video was an unexpected gift, one that allowed us to not forget who we are, or can be.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight for our rights. We should. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call lies lies. Truth requires us to.

And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t oppose masked agents of the state whisking away immigrants who are here legally. We must.

Because forfeiting our humanity to fight is too high a price to pay even during a time such as this.

This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM.