April 29, 2021 ☼ scott ☼ biden ☼ racism ☼ racist
Source: The Washington Post - Link
So it was Wednesday night, with Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) response to President Biden’s first speech to Congress. He began by tying his speech to Biden’s — “we just heard President Biden’s first address to Congress … his speech was full of good words” — and then just moved forward rebutting Biden’s agenda broadly.
It seems pretty clear that Scott expected Biden to focus more heavily on race in his speech. Biden spoke briefly about the death of George Floyd in Minnesota last year and about his desire “to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the people they serve” and “to root out systemic racism in our criminal justice system,” but not much beyond that.
This article is not so much about racism as it is about how “responses” to the president’s speeches are drafted. Scott drifted to make the point that the country is not racist. That may be a valid point, but there are still institutions in the country that exhibit attitudes that have been fed by decades of explicit structural racism. That needs to be recognized and worked on.