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Kelly Darden Jr. still remembers one of the first times he experienced the "defense of a black friend".
Back in high school, a group of white classmates dressed in Confederate-inspired clothing were part of a social club called "Rebel Rousers" and insisted that they were not in school. not racist when they were confronted because some of them knew Darden, a black man.
"It was insulting," he recalled Thursday in Greenville, North Carolina. "I was insulted by that even when it was happening."
Darden and countless other African-Americans have experienced variants of the "black friends defense" – claiming that a person can not be racist because of the color of society that he keeps – for generations. And the trope played in front of a national television audience this week when Republican Rep. Mark Meadows defended President Donald Trump against the testimony of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who claimed the president was racist. Meadows, from North Carolina, quickly sent social media into a frenzy when he pointed out Lynne Patton, Black Trump's administration staff, and said Patton would never tolerate working for a racist .
RELATED: Lynne Patton at the Republican National Convention
Many consider the "defense of a black friend" as a tired and hollow argument.
"The fact that someone is using an accessory, a black woman in the House, on this committee, is a racist party in its own right," said Michigan Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib, in response to Meadows interaction with Patton, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Meadows, who is white and outraged, countered by saying that he could not be racist because he had nephews and nieces of color and that he was the representative's friend Elijah Cummings, who was black and presided over the hearing.
"Defense" is usually part of a politician's game book.
Trump himself threw it more than once. In delivering remarks at a stage of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump pointed to someone in the crowd and shouted "Look at my African American there."
Some black celebrities have been called props or "Uncle Toms" for offering their support to Trump or just for meeting him. Kanye West, Steve Harvey and Jim Brown have all been criticized.
Harvey, who voted for Hillary Clinton, told the media in 2017 that he regretted meeting the president at Trump Tower because of the adverse reaction. He only did so in the hope of contributing to Trump's transition to the White House.
In "4 Little Girls", Spike Lee's 1997 documentary chronicling the deadly attack on a Birmingham church in 1963, the former governor of Alabama and former segregationist George Wallace explains how he helped blacks. At one point he sits behind the governor's office and summons a black man.
"Here is one of my best friends here … my best friend here, I would not go anywhere without him," said Wallace holding the man 's hand. The man remains silent but says nothing.
The phenomenon was the focus of a 2014 study by Daniel A. Effron, a professor at the University of London Business School.
In his research, Effron noted that former Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic said he had no anti-Muslim bias because his former barber was a Muslim. In 2016, Karadzic was convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for wartime atrocities, including the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men in 1995.
Tyler Parry, an associate professor of African-American studies at California State University in Fullerton, said that the use of blacks as political props had already occurred in the nineteenth century in the debates on l & # 39; slavery. In the writings of the former slave owners at the time of Antebellum, they often described their relationship with slaves as a friendship. It was a way for them to justify their stance on slavery.
Parry said that he finds it remarkable that people in the eyes of the public continue to use the excuse "the black friend" again and again in almost textual language rather than issuing a mea culpa. It comes shallow and casts doubt on the authenticity of friendship, he said.
"Some studies say it's a way to overcompensate.A white or privileged person feels the need to accumulate friends of color in case she is accused of racism," Parry said. "If they manage to deflect criticism and submit it to their friend as a way to explain it, they can get away with it."
Patton, a staff member of the Trump administration, denied being a figurehead exploited by Republicans. A former event organizer best known for her work on the marriage of Eric, Trump's son, Patton criticized Democratic lawmakers who "gave more weight to the word of a convinced perjurer." ", that a very educated black woman working alongside the president.
"This is not the summary of an accessory, but it is a summary of someone who is completely indifferent to other people's reviews and focused on the laser," Patton wrote on Instagram. .
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The associate editor of Jesse J. Holland in Washington contributed to this report.
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Tang, Hajela and Washington cover the race and ethnicity of The Associated Press. Follow them on Twitter: @ttangAP, @dhajela and @jessejholland and look for their work at https://apnews.com.
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