Senator Tim Scott and the Discussion of Black Progress

Yesterday, President Biden addressed Congress for the first time since he took office and laid out his ambitious nearly $6 trillion plan. This plan included major investments in education, infrastructure, increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour, as well as social issues like passing the George Floyd act and addressing systemic racism more directly. This speech was a generally positive one and included for the first time two women, Vice President Harris and Speaker Pelosi, who sat behind him as his chain of command.

After the speech though, U.S. Senator Tim Scott gave the GOP response to the President's plan. His response included among other things his personal story of the challenges he faced coming from a single parent household, stories of his illiterate grandfather who picked cotton, and personal testimonies of how his faith led him to his current position as a U.S. Senator. He also attempted to defend the current voter suppression effort by his party, by defending laws like the ones that came out of Georgia, claiming that they make "it easier to vote and harder to cheat," even though fact checkers noted that the laws being passed will reduce voter access in numerous ways. Then Senator Scott decided to address the topic of race, and that's when the rails came completely off for me. He mentioned how he has personally experienced discrimination, but stated that "America is not a racist country" and went on to say that we currently teach (white) kids that they are "oppressors."

Senator Scott is just the latest to use his personal success as a black man in the Republican party to try to defend the party whose current tactics are disenfranchising minority voters. None of it should be a surprise, as he has been noted as saying on Fox News that ""Woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy," even though I have yet to hear of anyone losing their lives to woke supremacy, but countless people have died for centuries, including this year, as a result of white supremacy. Since Senator Scott has claimed that we have already overcome in this country when it comes to race, I'd like to reflect a little on the topic of black progress in this country.

America's Racist History is Well Documented and Still Thrives Today

Even Senator Scott would have to admit that when it comes to race relations, our country's history is awful. In the United States, race has been at the center of countless laws, court opinions, multiple constitutional amendments, a Civil War, a Civil Rights Movement, and a host of other things both legally and culturally.

A recent documentary by HBO, Exterminate All the Brutes, highlights the atrocities of many western countries, including the United States, on people of color throughout the last few centuries. The documentary notes how Nazi Germany, who many regard as the worst regimes in recent world history, actually received much of its inspiration from the United States treatment of Native and black Americans. In the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, author Isabel Wilkerson notes that even Nazi Germany wasn't willing to go as far as the United States in many regards. Particularly, she noted that the one drop rule, where even one drop of black blood would deem you as black, was too extreme for them to classify its Jewish population.

Some might argue that, while America undoubtedly has a history of racism, our country has undoubtedly seen the error of its ways, addressed it properly, and Tim Scott's presence in the United States Senate is evidence of that. First, I'd point out that there were African Americans in the United States Senate during Reconstruction in the late 1800s as well, but we should now know that our country had not defeated racism at that point. I'd also point out that there are numerous signs that systemic racism is real and present today, evidenced in areas like criminal justice, education, housing, wealth, employment, etc. Ben & Jerry's has a piece that discusses of many of the current day signs of racism in our society. The point being that systemic racism is not a thing of the past that was ended with the abolition of slavery or the overturning of the Jim Crow laws, but one that continues to live on in our country to this very day.

Progress Is a Relative Term

Suppose you were to interview a married couple and found out that the husband had a history of punching his wife in the face. You ask how often this behavior has happened and they tell you that it started off happening on a daily basis, but he has since reduced this from a daily activity to a monthly one. Would you celebrate this as progress? Probably not. But that's what people have continually done in this country when it comes to race relations and it what Tim Scott basically did in his speech.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, some acted like they had solved the race problem by ending slavery, but more than 100 years later we should clearly be able see that the rise and subsequent fall of Jim Crow proved that abolishing slavery did not solve the race problem. Similarly, today people like Senator Scott are proclaiming victory over racism, since we don't allow it to be as blatant as it was during slavery or Jim Crow. Scott noted in his speech that "people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress." I'm not sure who Senator Scott is referring to, but it should be noted that the previous standards of slavery and Jim Crow are so low that celebrating that at least it's not it as bad as it used to be then, is no more comforting to communities of color than that of the battered spouse in the scenario above that now gets less abuse.

Malcom X once said "If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made." I would hope that we seek Malcom's approach to racial progress, where we seek to heal the wound of racism, rather than those like Senator Scott, who are just happy not to be in as bad a situation as we used to be.

Scott's Message Was Clearly Targeted at Republicans

One thing was clear to me in Senator Scott's speech was that I was not his target audience. It might have been addressed to America, but the message definitely felt catered to the Republican base. From his continual interweaving his Christian beliefs, to his defense of the current voter suppression efforts, to his stance that racism is mainly a thing of the past, Senator Scott's narrative was aimed with the conservative Republican base, far more than progressive African Americans like myself.

Senator Scott's speech also lacked much with regards to substance, especially when it came to the GOP's alternatives to Biden's proposals. He mentioned that he had himself proposed a police reform bill, but didn't let us know how it differed from the Democratic one. In much of this way, he was a lot like Trump, who gave a lot of promises to his followers, but not many details of how he planned on getting it done.

To get to the level of the United States Senate, Tim Scott clearly has made some well calculated moves over the years. Like many others before him, he likely realized that he could get further in the Republican Party than he could in the Democratic Party. Seeing that all of the black Democratic Senators have doctorate degrees, many from Ivy League schools, while he has just a bachelors degree, it probably was a better choice for him. That being said though, I don't think he is naive on the topic of race, but as a part of his staying in his position he must stay on message, back the repugnant behavior of people in his party (i.e. Trump), and attempt to defend the current actions of his party to restrict people that look like him from voting. I believe I understand where he's coming from, but am not a fan of anyone that plays a role in hindering the rights of others.

Conclusion

Senator Tim Scott had a message of hope and personal success, but his message on race fell all but fairly flat for most outside of the Republican base. His message that racism is a thing of the past and that we should applaud our current progress isn't much comfort for minority communities currently seeking equality. Hopefully this administration can fulfill some of its promises to address systemic racism, but it doesn't sound like they're gonna get much help from Republicans like Senator Scott on it.