“America is Not a Racist Country!”

Senator Tin Scott (R) South Carolina Denies His Own Experience

Senator Tim Scott gave the rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress on national television. In his response, he the statement, prefacing it by saying, “Hear me clearly.”

“AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY!”

Senator Scott said this, minutes after describing the number of times he himself, a sitting United States Senator, had been pulled over for no reason other than driving while Black. In a 2016 interview, Scott said he had been pulled over seven times by police; he acknowledged he was going too fast two of those times, but the other five times, the only thing he was guilty of was being Black.

There is a way to look at Senator Scott’s declaration as being true. America, in one sense, is a geographical boundary. It is territory which in and of itself cannot be racist. Only when one includes the people does Tim Scott’s statement become irrational and problematic.

I have on occasion defended Senator Tim Scott, who faces tough sledding as the only Black Senator in the Republican Party. Scott was the first African American to represent a southern state since Reconstruction. He has appointed to fill a vacancy in 2013, and as the incumbent won a special election in 2014 and a full term in 2016. He is up for re-election in 2022 and has to walk a narrow line to keep the backing of the Republican party in conservative South Carolina without ignoring the plight of his people.

On at least two occasions, Senator Scott opposed nominees for the federal bench based on their history; in one case threatening Black voters and the other for his writings on race. It took courage for Senator Scott to make that stand, and he recruited a few other Republican Senators to stand with him to block those nominations. I have pointed that out in his defense on multiple occasions, which is why it saddened me to watch him capitulate to his Party and declare the Georgia voter suppression bill not racist. He said,

“Republicans support making it easier to vote, and harder to cheat, and so do the voters.”

Scott said that as if he were somehow totally unaware of ongoing attempts in 47 states where Republicans were trying to make it harder to vote.

Activist and former Gubernatorial Candidate Stacey Abrams testified before the Senate about the new Georgia bill, which has already been passed into law. Republican Senator John Kennedy asked Abrams if she found the bill racist?

“I think there are provisions of it that are racist, yes.”

When asked what specific provisions she found racist, she had a list:

“It requires that a voter has a photo identification or some other form of identification that they after willing to surrender in order to participate in an absentee ballot process.”

“The bill would shorten voting time windows and allow counties to limit voting hours, which may have an effect on voters who cannot vote during business hours.”

Stacey Abrams objected to a provision limiting the number of ballot drop boxes and excluding almost all out-of-precinct votes.

“Meaning that if you get to a precinct and you are in line for four hours and you get to the end of the line and you are not there between 5 and 7 p.m., you have to start all over again.”

Stacey Abrams listed the racist provisions of the law Senator Scott defends for six minutes before being cut off by the Republican Senator who originally asked the question. The Georgia law is racist, as are the laws proposed in forty-six other states. Senator Scott made it a little easier for their passage by his defense of those laws and the Republicans that proposed them.

In fairness, Scott did allude to America’s racist past. He spoke of it as if it were some long-ago thing that went away and no longer exists. If he wanted to make the case things have gotten better, he could have done that. Has there been progress? Certainly, but we have also regressed, and Tim Scott is part of the problem. Yes, Tim Scott blocked two of the worst of the worst judicial nominees of Donald Trump, but he looked the other way on the other 232 judicial appointees under Trump, some of whom were ideologues and shared similar racist views. The Federal bench got much whiter (not that it needed help) under Trump and Scott’s approval. Of the 234 appointments, 192 were white, with only 37 people of color.

One example is Andrew L. Brasher, now a federal judge on the 11th circuit. Brasher had a long record of supporting voter suppression bills. He refused to acknowledge Brown v Board of Education as settled law (the one precedent nominees readily acknowledge). He was opposed by the NAACP and Urban League but not Tim Scott, who this time and others looked the other way.

I have an interest in history, and it’s probably best Tim Scott didn’t claim America has never been a racist country because that would require a book as opposed to an article. Tim Scott claimed America is not a racist country while citing multiple instances of racism he personally has faced. Tim Scott claims to have worked to fight the racism he claims doesn't exist. He is one of the Senate Co-Sponsors of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which has already passed in the House of Representatives. Scott seems to see his role as watering down the House bill to make it palatable to his fellow Republican senators. The bill wants to ban chokeholds by police; Scott wants to edit that out. The bill wants to end qualified immunity that protects officers from civil liability for their conduct; Scott wants to protect officers and allow police departments to be sued instead. Scott wants to take a meaningful bill and render it ineffective. The methods Scott wants to remain in place have overwhelmingly been used against minorities; Tim Scott is protecting racism and, worse yet, telling us not to believe our lying eyes.

America didn’t need Tim Scott individually to shield racism from assault. The full Congress, including some Democrats, has refused to acknowledge or confront white supremacy and the current violent activist groups sharing those beliefs. The Department of Homeland Security produced a report in 2020 identifying white supremacists as the leading domestic terror threat. That report wasn’t released until a new administration exposed it a year later. Under the past administration, the FBI was looking into Black identity extremists while ignoring the threat of white supremacists, skinheads, and neo-Nazis. The government at every level told us how few in number violent white racists were when in reality, they were infiltrating every level of government.

The list of those arrested at the January 6, 2021 assault on the White House contained elected representatives, former and current members of the military, police officers, firefighters, and people with ties to current members of Congress. White nationalists very recently had offices in the West Wing of the White House. One (talking about you, Stephen Miller) wrote many of the President’s speeches and developed much of the immigration policy that saw America cage brown children and, in some cases, separate them possibly forever from their parents. Our approach at the highest levels was to call COVID-19 the “Kung-flu” and causing hundreds of Asian Americans to be attacked and millions to live in fear of racist attacks.

America still has segregated schools in the deep south and New York, and other northern cities. Separate wasn’t equal then and isn’t now. The wage gap for minorities still exists, with Black men earning 87 cents on the dollar when compared to their white male counterparts. It’s even worse for Black women who make 38% less than white men and 21% less than white women who make 38% less than white men, and 21% less than white women. Maybe we’ve seen lots of improvement since the days of enslavement when Black men worked for free and Black women were bred so their children could be sold for profit. But America is nowhere close, Tim Scott, to a land where racism has been eliminated.

Maybe Tim Scott needed to say what he said to keep his seat at the table. A seat he used a couple of times to be sure but is that enough? Racism continues to exist because it’s perpetuated by some, denied by others, and accepted by far too many. White supremacy has infiltrated all of America’s institutions; the courts, the schools, law enforcement, the military, our elected officials, and one recent stint in the Presidency though Trump wasn’t our only racist President. The Constitution, in part, was designed to protect slavery without ever mentioning the word. Most of our current Supreme Court justices promote “originalism,” which ensures we never move past the original intentions.

It would be lovely to live in a country that wasn’t inherently and systemically racist. We don’t yet, but one day, God willing, we can make it so. It won’t happen with so-called leaders like Tim Scott telling us not to look behind the curtain as there’s nothing to see there. Racism is tearing up this country and others across the club. Denial will never lead to a cure.

You could read this piece and get the impression that Republicans alone are responsible for racism. Though they are the current standard-bearer, often literally waving racist flags, Democrats have a bloodier history, and every other Party before that has played their part. Racism has never been limited to a single political party and has often required the complicity of all involved. Tactics like gerrymandering, redistricting, and voter suppression have been used by both the present two major political parties and the Whigs and others before that. Racism was what built America and is still a major factor in the nation. Maybe one day Tim Scott will be right, but not today.