Sen. Tim Scott’s Token Response

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Of all of the congressional senators in the G.O.P., the Republicans appointed their only Black federal lawmaker to deliver their party’s response to newly elected U.S. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Choosing a black man during yet another racially turbulent time in this nation would be a strategic plan by white Republican leaders to make black America appear divided as to whether this nation is racist or not. 

South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott wasn’t sent to deliver his party’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address. He was sent to make his party appear less racist but failed miserably.

From the onset of Scott’s speech, his cognitive dissonance was evident.

“But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further and further apart,” Scott said. 

Scott didn’t mention how the U.S. House impeached his party’s leader for inciting an attempted coup on our nation’s democracy Wednesday, January 6, 2021 and voted against impeach in the Senate. 

Before the Capitol insurrection, Scott stood in silence as members of his party launched a venture to snuff black voters who had been terrorized for four years by his bigoted president. He followed a president who unapologetically called neo-Nazis “fine people,” used anti-Asian rhetoric (“Kung Flu, Chinese Virus”), and inflamed police officers to be more violent toward black citizens.

But Scott’s most inflammatory remark came nearly two-thirds through his speech when he accused the Democrats for using race as a weapon. 

“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” the black Senator, a descendant of enslaved people, said. Scott added, “It’s backward 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 become the most dangerous person to black America by neutralizing their harsh reality, seemingly sweeping centuries of racial terror and oppression back under the rug within one breath. 

Scott either didn’t think or ignored that white American culture’s 246-year history of legalized slavery, its failed Reconstruction Era, black codes, Jim Crow, redlining, racial terror lynchings, etc., directly impacts the social culture that shapes the conditions for systemic racism today.

The Senator’s delusions continued: “Republicans support making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” a cloudy statement that needs more context. 

Texas Republican legislators have proposed stripping 24-hour early voting sites, removal of drive-through voting sites, and the idea of preventing local officials from sending absentee ballot applications to every registered voter.  

Moreover, Republicans in Florida are proposing restrictions on the use of drop-boxes and limiting ‘who’s eligible’ for mail-in ballots.

While in some states, voter access will become more accessible, it’s the opposite in others and should be looked upon as the G.O.P.’s political-strategic ground game to reclaim the U.S. House and Senate within the next two years. 

Southern conservatives have historically veered toward restricting the right for African Americans to vote because blacks traditionally vote more progressively.

Scott remains the only black Republican U.S. senator. 

The Republicans used their one Black card as a token to continue their quest for continued white power to prevent their fears of racial replacement.