/Sen. Tim Scott: ‘Hear Me Clearly: America Is Not a Racist Country’

Sen. Tim Scott: ‘Hear Me Clearly: America Is Not a Racist Country’

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) gives the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress on April 28, 2021. (Photo: Screen capture)

(CNSNews.com) – Shortly after President Joe Biden urged Americans to seize the opportunity “to root out systemic racism that plagues America,” Sen. Tim Scott — a black man who has experienced discrimination firsthand — rejected the claim that this is a racist country:

“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” Scott said in his response to Biden’s speech.

“When America comes together, we’ve made tremendous progress. But powerful forces want to pull us apart,” Scott said:

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 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 to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.

Scott said he has experienced the pain of discrimination, including from “progressives” who disagree with his conservative views:

“I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping…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.”

(Indeed, “Uncle Tim” began trending on Twitter Wednesday night as Sen. Scott spoke.)

Scott pointed to his police reform proposal that was blocked by a Democrat filibuster: “My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution. But I’m still working. I’m still hopeful this (time) will be different,” he said.

Scott also raised the issue of voting rights, which has become a contentious, racially-charged issue, especially in Georgia:

I’m an African-American who has voted in the South all my life. I take voting rights personally. Republicans support making it easier to vote and harder to cheat. And so do voters! Big majorities of Americans support early voting, and big majorities support Voter I.D. — including African-Americans and Hispanics. Common sense makes common ground. But today, this conversation has collapsed.

The state of Georgia passed a law that expands early voting; preserves no-excuse mail-in voting; and, despite what the President claimed, did not reduce Election Day hours. If you actually read this law, it’s mainstream. It will be easier to vote early in Georgia than in Democrat-run New York. But the left doesn’t want you to know that. They want people to virtue-signal by yelling about a law they haven’t even read.

Fact-checkers have called out the White House for misstatements. The President absurdly claims that this is worse than Jim Crow. What is going on here? I’ll tell you. A Washington power grab.

This misplaced outrage is supposed to justify Democrats’ new, sweeping bill that would take over elections for all 50 states; it would send public funds to political campaigns you disagree with; and make the bipartisan Federal Elections Commission…partisan!

This is not about civil rights or our racial past. It’s about rigging elections in the future.