Biden speech and Republican rebuttal triggers debate on racism in US

The perennial debate over racism and xenophobia in the US has again put the two major political parties in the country at loggerheads, with Republicans accusing Democrats of making it “a political weapon”.

The Republican Party’s only Black senator, Tim Scott, reacting to US President Joe Biden’s speech on Wednesday, said America is “not a racist country”.

Scott, who represents the southeastern state of South Carolina in the US Senate, said “race is not a political weapon to settle every issue the way one side wants,” firing a salvo at Democrats.

His 15-minute televised remarks, which followed Biden’s prime-time speech, reignited the debate over racism with phrase “Uncle Tim” becoming a trending topic on Twitter.

Tim Scott: “I believe in the American dream and the future of a unified America.”

The Left: “Shut up, Uncle Tom!”

— Rob Smith 🇺🇸 (@robsmithonline) April 29, 2021

Pertinently, “Uncle Tim” is a reference to “Uncle Tom”, the lead character in the anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by abolitionist Harriet Stowe, who is seen extremely compliant to white people.

Scott himself brought up the phrase during his speech, saying, “I get called Uncle Tom and the ‘n-word’ by progressives and liberals.”

A major strategy of racists, is to incentivize one of it's Black victims to act as the crash test dummy for white supremacy.

When Uncle Tim Scott says America is not a racist country, he is fully aware he is speaking in bad faith.

The purpose is to protect white supremacists pic.twitter.com/Wk8OVF2Nl1

— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) April 29, 2021

Being the only Black Republican Senator, he has often drawn criticism and ridicule for working in the party of white supremacists and hate-mongers like former US President Donald Trump.

On Thursday morning, appearing on Fox News, the senator denounced the trending of the phrase on social media.

“Intolerance so often comes from the left with words like ‘Uncle Tim’ being used against me by the left,” he said, “and last night what was trending on social media was ‘Uncle Tim’.”

Scott’s remarks came in response to Biden’s speech on Wednesday, marking his first 100 days in office, in which he urged the nation to do more “to root out systemic racism in our criminal justice system”.

“We’ve all seen the knee of injustice on the neck of Black Americans,” Biden said during his speech. “Now is our opportunity to make some real progress.”

He urged Congress to enact a police reform bill by the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer Derek Chauvin last year.

On Thursday, asked to respond to Scott’s remarks, Biden said the African Americans had been historically left behind in the areas of education, healthcare and opportunities.

US Vice President Kamala Harris also agreed that the nation should address its racist history, and its continued existence.

“We have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country, and its existence today,” Harris told ABC, terming domestic terrorism perpetrated by white supremacists as “one of the biggest national security threats facing the nation”.

The incidents of violence perpetuated against people of color in the US have witnessed an alarming surge in recent years, with George Floyd’s diabolical murder and the subsequent high-profile trial of the white police officer shining light on the phenomenon.

Floyd’s killing and large-scale protests against racist violence in the US, however, did not make the lives of African Americans and Asian Americans safer. The violence continues unabated across the country.

Experts have attributed it largely to the former US President Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric, encouraging white supremacists to target people of color and get away with it.

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