Tim Scott: Let’s set the record straight on ‘woke supremacy’ and racism
Opinion by Tim Scott
March 23, 2021 at 9:28 a.m. EDT
Tim Scott, a Republican, represents South Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
I was criticized in this newspaper last week for saying that “woke supremacy” is as bad as white supremacy.
My comments, of course, were not comparing the long history of racial hate to the very short history of wokeism. That would be ludicrous. I am painfully aware that four centuries of racism, bigotry and killings does not compare to the nascent woke movement. As a country, we continue to pay a heavy price for our original sin.
My comments were a sound-bite-length reaction to yet another media figure accusing me of being a token for Republicans. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that type of slur. I spoke out because I am gravely concerned for our future if we ignore either type of supremacy — both of which are rooted in racism or discrimination.
Criticism has included the suggestion that I and other Republicans are “living proof that neither racial nor gender diversity is a guarantor of progressive, inclusive and broad-minded thinking. Diversity, much in vogue, has its limits.” In other words, my ideology does not match that which they prescribe based on my complexion.
That is woke supremacy. It is the “tolerant” left’s intolerance for dissent. It is a progressive conception of diversity that does not include diversity of thought. It is discrimination falsely marketed as inclusion.
This isn’t the first time the woke folk have come after me. I’ve been called a member of the “coon squad” for sharing my story and conservative vision for America at the 2020 Republican convention. A former leader of the NAACP called me a ventriloquist puppet. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom and a house n-----, among thousands of other insults.
I am proud to be both a Black man and a Republican. Because of those aspects of my identity, many critics have ignored things I have actually done. In the past few years alone, my Republican colleagues and I secured permanent funding for historically Black colleges and universities for the first time in history. We’ve passed bipartisan legislation to help those battling sickle cell disease. We’ve fought for school choice because poor, and often minority, parents are consistently the ones without choice. And I helped author the Republican tax reform that lowered taxes for single moms, doubled the child tax credit and brought Black unemployment to historic lows. That list barely scratches the surface.
Critics discount these accomplishments for the Black community because it conflicts with the caricature they’ve created of what it means to be Black and to be a Republican.
But the victims of woke supremacy aren’t just Republicans. After a recent vote against her fellow Democrats’ attempt to pass a job-killing minimum-wage hike during the pandemic, my friend and colleague Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) received so many death threats that she had to increase security for herself and her partner. I’ve received similar threats. A man — a “woke” Black man — is to be sentenced this month for threatening to gut me “like a fish” and blow me away with his rifle.
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Originally Posted by Lee Chowaniec
