“Hear me clearly,” the South Carolina Republican said last week. “America is not a racist country. 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.”
Since then, several leading Democratic leaders have repeated that America isn’t a racist country, beginning at the very top.
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“I don’t think America is racist,” Biden told NBC’s Today show in an interview that displayed Friday morning. “But I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow — and before that, slavery — have had a cost.”
“First of all, no, I don’t think America is a racist country, but we also do have to speak the truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with ABC. Harris is the first black person, Asian, and woman to hold the vice presidency.
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“We should stop arguing about whether or not this is a racist country,” Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 ranking Democrat in the House, told CNN. “It is not.”
Clyburn is a South Carolinian like Scott and one of the most influential black Democrats in Congress. His approval of Biden proved crucial in last year’s primaries.
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“A racist country would never elect Barack Obama president or Kamala Harris vice president," Clyburn added.
Democrats have pledged themselves to crack down on what they call systemic racism in law enforcement, housing, healthcare, wealth distribution, and a host of other areas. But they are also working to find their foundation in how to discuss these issues without appearing to call vast swathes of voters racist.
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“Today, kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again. And if you look a certain way, they're an oppressor,” Scott, the black Republican tapped to respond to Biden, said. “From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven't made any progress at all.”
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Some commentators countered the claim. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote that it “was nevertheless the case that Scott’s rhetoric was focused on a straw man.” But even nearly liberal Democrats see the political potency of Scott’s remarks.
“Wokeness is a problem,” longtime Democratic strategist James Carville told the liberal website Vox, “and we all know it.” He added that Biden’s “biggest attribute is that he’s not into ‘faculty lounge’ politics.”
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