AOC claims 'We are one' in campaign-style video despite years of invoking race, gender in politics

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted a campaign-style video on social media this week that sparked rumors about her political future. But conservatives quickly struck up a different conversation when she claimed, "We are one," after years of criticism for playing identity politics. 

"Don't let them trick us into thinking we are enemies. Don't let them trick us into thinking we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latina. We are one," Cortez said in the video that's amassed over 7 million views. 

While Ocasio-Cortez seems to imply Republicans are seeking to divide America based on race, the four-term New York congresswoman has a long track record of invoking race in politics. 

The words highlighted in Ocasio-Cortez's video this week spotlight a fixture of her developing stump speech to record-setting crowds alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during their "Fighting Oligarchy" tour. The progressive Democrat has often argued that Republicans weaponize racial resentment to halt Democratic progress. 

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"The only chance they have to get away with such an unpopular and hurtful agenda is to stoke deep divisions along race, identity and culture to keep us fighting and distracted," she said at a rally in Boise, Idaho, earlier this month. 

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During the 2024 presidential campaign, Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent that "as an elected official, who is a prominent woman of color, I've seen a lot," adding that Vice President Kamala Harris has her own experience with misogyny and racism. 

"I think we brace ourselves for some of the unfair misogynistic and racial undertones, overtones, explicit attacks on implicit attacks that she may be subjected to, and it's important for us to keep our eyes open for what is fair, but also what is unfair," she said. 

Since Ocasio-Cortez was elected in 2018 to represent parts of Queens and the Bronx in the U.S. House of Representatives, unseating a 10-term incumbent, she has framed her success as shattering barriers to gender and racial justice in the United States. 

During her victory speech in Queens in November 2018, Ocasio-Cortez noted she was the "first person of color to ever represent" New York's 14th Congressional District, which she said was 70% people of color, half of them working class. 

Then the youngest congresswoman, Ocasio-Cortez said she was mistaken for an intern or a spouse and used the opportunity to spotlight the bias against her, posting on social media, "Next time try believing women + people of color when they talk about their experiences being a woman or person of color."​

Jussie Smollett, a Black and gay actor, falsely claimed in January 2019 that he was attacked by two men at 2 a.m. on a cold Chicago night and said the men yelled he was in "MAGA country," used racist and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck and poured an "unknown substance" on him. 

Smollet was sentenced in 2022 for faking a hate crime and lying to the Chicago Police about it. Smollett received support of several Democrats before his allegations were debunked, including Ocasio-Cortez, who said it was "a racist and homophobic attack," while urging Americans to work to change what is "happening to our country." Ocasio-Cortez deleted her pro-Smollett tweet when he was convicted of staging the crime. 

During a "60 Minutes" interview in 2019, Ocasio-Cortez labeled President Donald Trump "racist." 

Later that year, Ocasio-Cortez accused former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of unfairly singling out the freshmen progressive "Squad," calling it an "explicit singling out of newly elected women of color."​

She later clarified that she wasn't calling Pelosi racist but maintained that women of color were disproportionately targeted.

But Ocasio-Cortez didn't hold back in her racist allegations when Trump said the "Squad" should "go back" to other countries. 

"We don’t leave the things that we love. When we love this country, what that means is we propose the solutions to fix it," she said at a press conference. She later said on social media it was the "hallmark language of white supremacists," warning, "Trump feels comfortable leading the GOP into outright racism."

During the pandemic in 2020, Ocasio-Cortez said on social media, "COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities," adding, "the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions," tying health disparities to racial injustice. 

After the attacks on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, Ocasio-Cortez said in an Instagram Live she "didn’t even feel safe around other members of Congress"​ and added that she avoided hiding during the attack where "there were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers, and frankly white supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point"​

And in the aftermath of a shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in a predominately Black neighborhood, she said in a post, "White supremacy has cost countless lives from El Paso to Mother Emanuel and now Buffalo. Our hearts break for the victims. And we demand accountability."

In a GQ interview that year, Ocasio-Cortez reiterated that misogyny and racism shaped her experience as a politician. saying, "I admit to sometimes believing that I live in a country that would never let" a woman become president. 

In 2023, Ocasio-Cortez's views on race and gender came to a head during a viral speech on the House floor in support of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., before the House voted to oust Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. She said Omar's ouster had nothing to do with "the condemnation of antisemitic remarks," but "the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body."

"Don’t tell me this is about objectivity. … This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America," Ocasio-Cortez said as she slammed her notebook on a table. 

Ocasio-Cortez faced pushback from conservatives for claiming "We are one" in her video this week while still designating Americans along racial and ethnic lines in the same video. 

Colin Rugg, a conservative influencer and co-owner of Trending Politics, responded, "This has to be a joke.

"You capitalized ‘Black’ and ‘Latino’ but not ‘white.’ You guys were always the ones drumming up the race stuff. Everyone was fine," Matt Antar, finance chair of the New York Young Republicans Club, added on X among the flood of furious replies from conservatives questioning why "white" was lower case in her post. 

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Since 2020, AP Style, the standard for American journalism style preferences, has capitalized "Black" to represent the "shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black." AP Style does not capitalize "white" because white people "generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color," according to the Associated Press. 

Ocasio-Cortez's campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment by deadline.