(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Tim Scott (R.-S.C.) sent out a tweet on Friday that included a clip from the speech he gave Wednesday night in response to President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress.
In that Wednesday night speech, Scott said: “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.”
In his Friday tweet, Scott said: “No amount of backward bigotry will shake my faith in the goodness of America.
“I meant what I said Wednesday night,” he said, “and I’m glad Joe Biden and Kamala Harris agreed with me: America is not a racist country.”
In the clip from his speech that Scott included with his tweet, he talked about the discrimination he has personally experienced.
“Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than in our discussions of race,” Scott said in the clip. “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.
“I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it, I thought,” Scott said. “But later, I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example.”
Scott then said that progressives had called him racist terms.
“I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance,” Scott said. “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 first hand our healing is not finished.”
But then, in the clip he tweeted out, Scott made clear that “America is not a racist country.”
“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” said Scott. “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.”
Here is a transcript of the clip of his Wednesday night speech that Scott tweeted out on Friday:
Sen. Tim Scott: “Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than in our discussions of race. 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. 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 first hand 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 the filibuster to block the debate from even happening. My friends across the aisle seemed 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. 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.”
