Racism: Scott’s rebuttal to the Left
Tim Scott just offered America “an optimistic Republican vision” to combat President Joe Biden’s Big Government zeal, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. In his rebuttal to Biden’s address to Congress last week, the Senate’s only Black Republican lauded the freedom and opportunities that allowed him and so many others to succeed, and then delivered this “electrifying” moment: “Hear me clearly,” he said. “America is not a racist country.” Liberals reacted with “contrived, hyperbolic outrage,” said David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. Since Scott acknowledged he’d experienced bigotry himself and had been pulled over by police at least 18 times, the Left insisted he had contradicted himself and smeared him as “Uncle Tim.” But Scott is right: The lingering existence of some racism doesn’t mean “the nation itself is fundamentally, legally, culturally, or systemically racist.”
Scott wasn’t chosen to rebut Biden’s speech, said Clay Cane in CNN.com. Party leaders picked him to play “the role of the Black man who makes white Americans more comfortable.” Scott—who voted with Donald Trump 90 percent of the time—performed that role with aplomb, quoting Scripture and citing his family’s “cotton to
Congress” narrative to insist that America had overcome the sins of its past. Certainly “America is not the same country it was,” said Charles Blow in The New York Times, “but neither is it the country it purports to be.” Even today, America’s institutions produce measurably poorer outcomes for Black people because of built-in biases. Just six months ago, “nearly half the country voted for a full-on racist in Donald Trump.” Based on the evidence, “saying that America is racist is not a radical statement.”
Republicans and Democrats define “racism” differently, said Philip Bump in The Washington Post. Republicans “prefer to see racism as an outlier, a function of explicit racists” who openly say Blacks are inferior. Democrats focus on the “structural” or “systemic” racism that produces these results: Black families have on average one-tenth the wealth of their white counterparts, are rejected at an 80 percent higher rate for mortgages, attend more dysfunctional schools, lead shorter lives, and are more likely to be stopped or killed by police. It’s “obvious” that our political and economic institutions aren’t working equally for everyone. That’s the real issue, not “the straw man” question of whether America itself is racist.