Reactions to Sen. Tim Scott’s GOP response to President Biden continue. Twitter belatedly blocked a racist hashtag attacking Scott, while the black Republican senator soldiered on, beginning bipartisan negotiations on a much-anticipated police reform bill.
Summary
After Biden’s Joint Address to Congress, the Republican response was offered by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, rebuked Democrats for using race as a political weapon.
- Scott was chosen to give the GOP response after Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler’s “fact check” into Scott’s ancestry, attempting to dispute Scott’s oft-repeated claims of “going from cotton to Congress in one generation”, a claim journalist Zaid Jilani critiqued the Post for.
- During and after Scott’s speech, in which he proclaimed “America is not a racist country” and condemned what he considers the left’s attempt to “fight discrimination with different types of discrimination”, a number of prominent social media users called him “Uncle Tim” (a play on the slur “Uncle Tom”), which Scott called “so disappointing” for liberal elitists “attacking the color of my skin.”
- The day after Biden’s speech, Scott and fellow South Carolinian senator Lindsey Graham began negotiations on a bipartisan police reform bill with Senate Democrats, efforts he has made several times in the past and shut down by Democratic colleagues in the Senate.
- Jim Clyburn, a black Congressman from South Carolina and one of the highest-ranking officials in the House, directly addressed the conversation surrounding Scott’s emphasis on race in America, agreeing with Scott that America is not inherently racist, but diverging from Scott by saying there are elements pushing “racially tinged” ideas or policies, specifically regarding voting and elections.
- The Washington Post extensively covered the liberal and black activist class responses to Sen. Scott’s remarks, calling him an apologist for “white grievance”, while trotting out the cliched “Republicans seized” phrase when reporting on GOP response to liberal elements hellbent on criticizing America.
- It wasn’t until the next day that Twitter blocked the racist “#UncleTim” hashtag liberal activists were using to denigrate Sen. Scott as a black American, as reported by Newsweek, which allowed extensive Republican response to Twitter’s less than enthusiastic crackdown on racism and hate directed toward a conservative.
- CNN.com published a remarkably contemptible piece by a SiriusXM satellite radio host whose name conjures up only one response: “who?”, when this host blasted anyone and everyone, Republican and Democrat, if they did not proclaim America to be a horrible, irredeemably racist nation and criticized Scott for using “his Blackness when it’s convenient” for the benefit of the GOP.
- Fox News reported on a local Democratic Party county chairperson who is being asked to resign after calling Sen. Scott an “oreo” on Facebook, meaning Scott is “perceived as acting white.”
- RedState wrote about the reasons many on the left appear to be triggered by Scott’s speech, putting forth arguments on race RedState argues are difficult for the left to debunk and Scott’s “sensible approach” on discussing race is “overly challenging” for the left.
- Townhall.com blasted MSBNC’s coverage, saying it allowed a program to criticize Scott’s remarks because of Scott’s political affiliation, while allowing Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who is gay and has faced criticism on race from the left, to discuss how highways are racist.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
