BY TYLER O'NEIL | P J Media
Screenshot via CNBC Television
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) delivered a powerful response to
President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday. He noted that,
despite Biden’s unity rhetoric, “the president and his party are pulling us
further apart.” He spoke about his struggles as a black man, but he countered
the leftist critical race theory narrative by clearly stating that “America is
not a racist country.”
For that, leftist influencers and Democrats branded Scott
“Uncle Tim” and accused him of trying to protect “white supremacy.”
“A major strategy of racists, is to incentivize one of
it’s [sic] Black victims to act as the crash test dummy for white
supremacy. When Uncle Tim Scott says America is not a racist country, he is
fully aware he is speaking in bad faith. The purpose is to protect white
supremacists,” film producer Tariq Nasheed, who has more than 250,000 followers
on Twitter, declared.
Former MSNBC host Touré defended the “Uncle Tim” label —
a racist attack suggesting that Tim Scott is an “Uncle Tom,” a traitor to his
race.
“What makes Tim Scott an Uncle Tim? He has siblings and
they have kids. Duh,” Touré sardonically wrote. Then he got to the real issue:
“Also he was on TV denying that America is racist thus aiding and abetting
white supremacy.”
Talbert Swan, a Canadian bishop and the president of
Greater Springfield NAACP in Massachusetts, delivered perhaps the nastiest
attack.
“Uncle Tim Scott has perfected the art of sycophantic
bootlicking,” Swan tweeted. “He’s a master step n fetch it artist and cunning
white supremacy apologist, who demonstrated his buck dancing skills in front of
the entire world.”
Adam Ford, founder of The Babylon Bee, arguably gave
the best response to this attack: “As this ‘pastor’ so
colorfully illustrates, ‘antiracism’ is nothing more than actual racists
discovering a way to shout their racism in civil society without being silenced
… because it allows them to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of racism!”
Swan did not shy away from attacking Vice President
Kamala Harris when she echoed Scott in saying, “I don’t think America is a
racist country.” He did not use the same kind of race-tinged attacks against
Harris as he did against Scott, however.
“This comment is as asinine as Uncle Tim Scott’s,” Swan responded. “Stop giving white supremacy cover.”
While Swan did attack Harris for her truthful admission,
he also stepped up to defend her when Meghan McCain referred to her as
“Kamala.”
“It’s Madam Vice President, not Kamala, you disrespectful
shrew,” he jabbed at McCain. After McCain praised Tim Scott, Swan again
attacked the senator as “Uncle Tim” tweeting, “Uncle Tim Scott is a sycophantic
white supremacy apologist.”
By attacking Scott as an “Uncle Tim,” these left-leaning
commentators proved the senator’s point.
“Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than
in our discussions of race,” Scott said in his speech. “I have experienced the
pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no
reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping.”
Yet he also described having ” experienced a different
kind of intolerance. I get called ‘Uncle Tom’ and the N-word — by
‘progressives’! By liberals! Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my
family’s poverty was actually privilege… because a relative owned land
generations before my time.”
Yet Scott also condemned the divisive racialist politics
of critical race theory that the Democratic Party has championed.
“A hundred years ago, kids in classrooms were taught the
color of their skin was their most important characteristic — and if they
looked a certain way, they were inferior. Today, kids again are being taught
that the color of their skin defines them — and if they look a certain way,
they’re an oppressor,” he lamented.
“From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are
making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress. By
doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal. You know this
stuff is wrong,” Scott said.
Then he delivered the message that so triggered the
leftists: “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It’s
backwards to fight discrimination with different discrimination. And it’s wrong
to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the
present.”
Yet Scott does not oppose police reform. Elsewhere in the
speech, he said, “Believe me, I know our healing is not finished. In 2015,
after the shooting of Walter Scott, I wrote a bill to fund body
cameras. Last year, after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, I
built an even bigger police reform proposal.”
“But my Democratic colleagues blocked it! I extended
an olive branch. I offered them amendments. But Democrats used the filibuster
to block the debate from even happening,” Scott recalled. “My friends across
the aisle seemed to want the issue… more than they wanted a solution.”
On issue after issue — from COVID-19 relief to the
infrastructure bill to police reform — Democrats in Congress and the Biden
administration have refused to work with Republicans to craft a bipartisan
clean piece of legislation that addresses the issue without including massive
Democratic handouts. Each time, Democrats turned away Republican efforts.
Only about 5 percent of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 “relief” package Biden signed
actually went to fighting the pandemic. Only about 10.5 percent of his $2.25 trillion “infrastructure” bill actually funds
traditional infrastructure. Democrats fought Tim Scott’s police reform bill before
Scott had finished writing it. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called it a
“token” effort and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tripled down on accusations that Republicans were “trying to get away
with murder, the murder of George Floyd” because Tim Scott’s provisions against
chokeholds did not go far enough, in her view.
In fact, Tim Scott’s JUSTICE Act is substantially similar to the Democrats’ bill,
the Justice in Policing Act. Yet the Democrats’ bill goes
further by banning chokeholds and no-knock raids rather than incentivizing
police departments to ban them, by prohibiting “racial, religious and
discriminatory profiling,” and by eliminating qualified immunity for law
enforcement.
The fact that Tim Scott counters critical race theory and
the claim that America is “systemically racist” does not make him an “Uncle
Tim” or a “white supremacy apologist.” America has indeed experienced
tremendous racial progress thanks to abolition, the civil rights amendments,
the civil rights movement, the election of a black president, and more.
It is extremely telling that proponents of critical race
theory are willing to engage in racist attacks against a black Republican
because he disagrees with their hyperbolic rhetoric. This episode demonstrates
that it is vitally important for Americans to reject critical race theory and
the hucksters who push it.
__________
Senior
editor of PJ Media, Tyler O'Neil is an author and conservative commentator. He
has written for numerous publications, including The Christian Post, National
Review, The Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Signal, AEI's Values &
Capitalism, and the Colson Center's Breakpoint. He enjoys Indian food, board
games, and talking ceaselessly about politics, religion, and culture. He has
appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight." He is the author
of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the
Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
_________________
RELATED
ARTICLE
GOP Sen. Tim Scott Delivers a Unifying
Message on Race That (Shock!) Even Kamala Harris Agrees With
BY STACEY LENNOX | P J Media
Screenshot via CNBC Television
Republicans selected Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to give the
response to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress. He spoke convincingly and sincerely on issues of race currently
dominating the culture. Of course, only one line from his entire segment on the
topic is making the rounds, which I have highlighted in his full remarks on the
subject:
I
have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be
pulled over for no reason. To be followed around the store while I am shopping.
I remember every morning at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the
newspaper and read it, I thought. But later I realized he had never learned to
read it. He just wanted to set the right example.
I’ve
also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called Uncle Tom and
the n-word by progressives. By liberals. Just last week, a national newspaper
suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege. Because a relative
owned land generations before my time.
Believe
me, I know firsthand our healing is not finished. in 2015 after the shooting of
Walter Scott I wrote a bill to fund body cameras. Last year after the deaths of
Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, I built an even bigger police reform proposal.
But
my Democratic colleagues blocked it. I extended an olive branch. I offered
amendments. But Democrats used a filibuster to block the debate from even
happening. My friends across the aisle seem to want the issue more than they
wanted a solution. But I’m still working. I’m hopeful that this will be
different.
When
America comes together, we’ve made tremendous progress. But powerful forces
want to pull us apart. One hundred years ago, kids in classrooms were taught
the color of their skin was their most important characteristic. And if they
looked a certain way, they were inferior. Today kids are being taught the color
of their skin defines them again. And if they look a certain way, they’re an
oppressor.
From
colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining
power by pretending we haven’t made any progress at all. By doubling down on
the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal. You know this stuff is wrong. Hear
me clearly, America is not a racist country. it’s backwards to
fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to
try and use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.
Out of all that passionate, personal, sincere, and even
personally painful prose from Scott, five words are all the corporate media
cares about. That is how much the activist commentariat relies on racial
divisions to distract and divide us on behalf of their political party.
Predictably, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked to comment. Keep in mind
that Harris was raised by two Ph.D.s in one of the country’s most liberal
cities and spent a large portion of her childhood in Canada. A single mother
raised Tim Scott in the South.
On Good Morning America, Clinton hack George
Stephanopoulos posed the question to Harris:
Stephanopoulos: [Senator Tim Scott said] last night
that America is not a racist country. Do you agree with that? And what do you
make of his warning against fighting discrimination with more discrimination?
Harris: I believe that we need to adj… well,
first of all… no. I don’t think America is a racist country, but we also do
have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its
existence today. And I applaud the president for always having the ability and
the courage frankly to speak the truth about it.
Sure. The guy whom Harris, for all intents and purposes,
accused of racism during the primary, speaks the truth and has courage on
issues of race. They make quite a pair. Their policies incarcerated thousands
of young black men for lengthy sentences on minor, non-violent crimes between
the two of them. After Harris bailed on the primary, writers acknowledged that black voters did not trust
her because of her record as a prosecutor. She had little black support in the
primary. Others said they just didn’t identify with her. It is still a mystery how Biden
got a pass with black voters, given his history.
Still, Harris let the cat out of the bag. America is not
a racist country. There is no way to put that toothpaste back in the tube. Her
caveat is ridiculous, since, as you can see above, Scott acknowledges the
history and current presence of racism in personal and cultural terms. His
approach is different. He considers the problem to be one that afflicts
individuals and does not require a fundamental change to our entire system of
government, education, and policing. Instead, he advocates incremental change
through targeted reforms to policing and school choice.
Just because Democrats can point to a disparity in
outcomes between the races does not mean they have evidence of discrimination.
It is the only evidence they point to for “systemic racism” when any individual
outcome has dozens of factors contributing to it. Solving these problems will
require different discussions, and they will be more complex than their
preferred method of solving past discrimination with discrimination in the
present and the future. Senator Scott knows this and is willing to have
difficult conversations about complex problems.
Scott’s speech demonstrates that he can speak about
racial issues clearly and in language we can all understand rather than
woke-speak. Hopefully, Americans can rally around a youthful leader who speaks
as Martin Luther King Jr. did of marching forward together to make real and
meaningful improvements rather than the ones that have picked up the Black
Panthers’ mantle and just want to burn it all down. It seems even Vice
President Harris may agree that Scott’s path is the better one.
____________
Stacey
Lennox is a recovering Fortune 500 executive and healthcare professional.
Busting the COVID-19 narrative under the VIP tab to avoid the censors. PJ Media
readers can hear Stacey on the weekly Loftus Party podcast with comedian
Michael Loftus and multiple shows a week on KLRN Radio.
