“THIS IS A TESTAMENT TO THE PROGRESS MADE …”
By FITSNEWS || At every stage of his ascent up the political ladder (he was a county councilman six years ago, people), U.S. Senator Tim Scott has eschewed discussion of his race. For him, it has always been about his views, not his skin color.
We appreciate that about Scott. Like him, we believe the right to life, liberty and prosperity are sacred guarantees made to all people – and that there should be equal opportunity for all people to enjoy those guarantees regardless of race, creed, gender or sexual orientation.
Colorblind candidates are the best kind of candidates in our book … not to mention the best candidates to appreciate the colorblindness of the broader marketplace (if not all of its participants).
Anyway … Scott broke from his habit of not discussing race in the wake of his historic election on Tuesday night. Which makes sense. Because for the first time since Reconstruction nearly a century-and-a-half ago, a black man – Scott – was elected to the U.S. Senate from a southern state. Scott was already a serving U.S. Senator, mind you, but he took office as an appointee. Now he’s been elected in his own right.
“My skin color is talked about often,” Scott wrote in a series of tweets. “Tonight I want to talk about it for just a moment. In South Carolina, in America, it takes a generation to go from having a grandfather who is picking cotton, to a grandson in Congress.”
“We are thankful for those trailblazers who came before us and said the status quo was not enough,” Scott continued. “I stand on the shoulders of giants. Our values and our issues are central. The most important things we have to offer are on the inside. This is the testament to progress made.”
“I want to speak to the future leaders of America,” Scott concluded. “Don’t let anyone define you but you. You have a responsibility to be yourself. Be proud. We have too many young people being trapped in poverty because other people are defining them with low expectations.”
Indeed …
And beyond this, um, “soft bigotry” of low expectations (or whatever buzzterm the last president coined), the truth is the administration of Barack Obama is actively perpetrating what can only be called exceedingly well-organized black-on-black crime.
Let’s hope Scott – unlike other “Republicans” – stands up to stop it.
***
66 comments
A congratulations could’ve been sufficient enough. He doesn’t even get that from fitsnews. Wow.
He deserves to be congratulated. However, I am a 48 year old white male and my mother, my father and my grandparents all picked cotton in Elberton, Georgia during their time. Blacks in the South do not have the market cornered on poverty, pain, hard work and suffering. Those fortunate enough to rise above it owe it to all others to remember that.
I agree totally, CEJ. I am a 62 year old white male and not only did my father and mother pick cotton but I did too…..in SC. We all harvested tobacco together as did our neighbors.
I congratulate Scott and won’t take anything from him, but he didn’t corner the market on bootstrapping. I worked my way through college, gained employment and saved money and knowledge enough to buy a business and expand it, and later, others.
Truthfully, I didn’t know how humble my background was until I got to Clemson and saw others who were much further ahead financially than I and my family. I saw others just as poor, too. Some of them gave up; I’m too damn stubborn.
I’m not Black; I get that. But my neighbors were and they are successful in their own right as responsible employees of others, civil servants, retired military, educators, and coaches.
Your folks might have picked cotton, but they sure didn’t have to pick it for free. Black sharecroppers might have gotten paid, but I’d bet my kitchen sink they made FAR less than your folks for the same or doing even more work.
You’re right, blacks are not the only people who have endured hardship. but we are the only one who endured American slavery for hundreds of years….
because your own people overpowered their weaker brethren and sold them to enrich themselves. Not unlike blacks such as Pinson and many others today who abuse their power to rob their brothers and sisters today. Cry on but your bondage has been broken -it is on you to make it good now. 100 years ago is water under the bridge, spilt milk and so on.
Where did you come from?
Where did you go?
“Because for the first time since Reconstruction nearly a century-and-a-half ago, a black man – Scott – was elected to the U.S. Senate from a southern state…”
When will this misguided talking point die? The unusual historical aspect of Scott’s election is not that he is from the South, it is that a black person was elected at all. Since Reconstruction ended, SC is only the 4th state in the entire country to elect a black senator. Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey (only recently joining the list via Cory Booker) are the only other states to have done so. It is silly to frame this as a Southern concern when 95% of the states have never been represented by a black senator.
That’s really a good point.
The whole race issue is really driven by politics more than any other entity.
Blacks constitute a much large percentage of the population in the Southeast than in most of the nation. You are comparing apples and oranges. Of course a black man is not likely to be elected from Wyoming. But why worry about facts, its better to paint the reality you want. We can ignore the South’s racial history if it suits us.
Precisely, Blacks make up approximately 29% of the population in South Carolina, and 37% of the population in Mississippi.. Blacks make up 7% of the population of MA, 14% of the population of NJ and 15% of the population of Illinois. Absent racism, the odds of a black person being elected from a southeastern state would be 2 or 3 times higher than most states outside of the Southeast. So no CL you are not right.
Black people make up 29% of the population in Maryland. I guess that makes Maryland super racist, too? What is the magical threshold below which you don’t ever get judged for failing to elect a black senator? 20%? If so, Delaware must have been a shadow member of the Confederacy.
Maryland was border state. It remained in the Union because Lincoln threatened to occupy Annapolis and arrest the legislature if they seceded. My grandfather was from MD. Until the 60s they remained largely a southern state. The economy of southern MD was agricultural. Tobacco mainly. They had segregated schools and bath rooms just like most of the South until the 60s.
No one is claiming that there is no racism in the North, or that we should not try to deal with it. Only that racism was and remains more prevalent in the Southeast than elsewhere in the country.
“Only that racism was and remains more prevalent in the Southeast than elsewhere in the country.”
Having worked in NE and lived in both Michigan & Ohio, I can tell you that is categorically false.
Race relations here in SC are MUCH better than in many of those places. Especially Detroit & Cleveland.
Of course race relations are better here in the South. We, blacks and whites, work alongside each other, go to school together and the vast majority have similar religious beliefs.
I agree, but you’d never know it if you listen to guys like Terry.
Based upon what? The fact that SC elected a black senator? or the fact that NC and Georgia are in the 95% of states that have not?
Anecdotally, I have spent quite a bit of time in the Chicago and New York areas, and I was blown away with the openly racist attitudes of many of the people I met. I heard the n word more in a bedroom community in Northern Indiana than I ever did growing up in the South.
“Only that racism … remains more prevalent in the Southeast than elsewhere in the country.”
Yet you cite not a shred of evidence to support this contention. You blithely jump from Jim Crow to today and act as if nothing has changed in the meantime. I grew up in the South, and I can honestly say I have encountered far more racist attitudes above the Mason Dixon line, particularly the Chicago area (Northern Indiana especially) and New York/New Jersey. I will never forget a northern lawyer at a deposition in NJ saying some rather disturbing things about the black residents of Asbury Park, for instance.
Your reliance on population groups runs in to further trouble if you look at Hispanics. California and Nevada have never had a Hispanic senator. Hispanics make up 38% and 27%, respectively, of the populations of those states. I eagerly await your denunciation of the racists in those states.
So the 89 states that were not part of the Confederacy get a pass because they do not have as many black people. Lets explore that logic. Doesn’t a larger black population mean fewer racist white people to vote against a black candidate? I guess the percentage could theoretically be tied to the availability of a good candidate. So what is the threshold black population you need to have a viable black candidate in your mind?
I am not ignoring anything. I just cannot get on board with the left’s perverse desire to wallow in the worst parts of our history and to pretend that life today is anything like it was in 1860. It diminishes what black people actually went through historically to use slavery or Jim Crow as a political tool.
You could not care less what black people went through. Just like most white people. That is the past. So lets move on in the post racial world. Because we all know that racism is no longer a problem in South Carolina.
There is no magic threshold. Just statistics. In a color blind world were all men and women are equal, 29% of the time the Senator elected from SC would be black. 6% of the time the Senator elected from California would be black. By the way 51% of the time the Senator would be female. But that is another story.
No one believes that kind of world can arise overnight. For that matter a lot of people don’t even want that kind of world to exist. But I think any statistical measurement you care to use would show racism is significantly more prevalent in the Old South than elsewhere in the country.
By the way, since when is Will a liberal? He is the one who made the comment you complained of. Scott makes a good point on race. Even though I don’t think he would have had any chance of being elected if Haley had not appointed him and given him the R on the ballot. He would never have won a Republican Primary.
“You could not care less what black people went through.”
You really are a demagoging, presumptuous prick.
I figured sense you have no trouble labeling people without a shred of proof, I’d return the favor.
(and I’m not CL btw either)
“In a color blind world were all men and women are equal, 29% of the time the Senator elected from SC would be black. 6% of the time the Senator elected from California would be black. By the way 51% of the time the Senator would be female.”
That is just sophomoric analysis. You probably really think that women make 77 cents for every dollar made by men for the same work. But lets play that game. California has never had a Hispanic senator. Does that mean the Democrats who run California are staunch racists? How about Nevada?
Or how about the flip side of your argument – there have been more Jewish Senators than black senators. I guess you think the over representation of Jewish people in the Senate, relative to the population of those groups in the relevant states, is a sign of a vast Semitic conspiracy to control the country. After all, there is no legitimate explanation for disproportionate representation, right? And no one ever discriminates against Jews, right?
I never said many there was no racism in this country (or that Will was a liberal). I responded only to the insulting and unsubstantiated claim that racism is a peculiar problem in the South in 2014. But your dishonesty and ad hominem attacks show that we should not really expect anything better from you.
The only reason Scott won yesterday is because Nookie appointed him when she (and she alone) got to choose. He ran as an incumbent Republican in this backasswards state where an (R) is almost a guarantee of a statewide victory (unless you take the Confederate Flag off the state house, in which case your people turn on you). His primary opponent was also black. Unfortunately, she was a no-name nobody who didn’t do shit to try and win. If Scott had to run for the seat without it having been gifted to him first, I’m pretty sure he would never have gotten out of the primary.
You just attacked the female writer on another article. Now you are going after Scott because he is black?
Seriously, grow-up dumbass.
Are you stalking me?
I did not “attack the female writer” – I pointed out that the writer, who happened to be female, is an idiot.
I am not “going after Scott.” I am pointing out that the only reason he won yesterday is because he was appointed to the seat less than two years ago and was able to run as an incumbent with an (R) next to his name. What is so complicated about that? Did my big words confuse you?
Republican shill tries throwing the race card, fails miserably.
Really?!? This is my point. Nobody has mentioned a word about him. I heard a black person this morning callnhim a “house …..” why? Because his views are different? He couldve been out on the street but he made something of himself and the black community makes him feel like crap because he decided he believed in something else? No wonder racism is alive and well. If ur black and not giving anything to the them, ur useless. Thats sad. This man set goals and are making them happen. But because its not pleasing the democratic party, they wont take claim to him.
Well, I screwed your mother, for starters. Then I kicked a puppy and stole candy from a child.
Kinda hard to do that buddy. Since shes dead. How did you pull that one off?
My mother is deceased and he posted the same trash about her the other day.
You are stalking me, aren’t you? How cute.
Yea hes trash. I want to know how he did it and if his dad was there too.
Why did you edit your post after I responded? What happened to your big closing line of “What did you do today?”
Whos the stalker?
Allow me to fix it. Since you want your 15 minutes of fame.
You didn’t answer the question. Why did you edit the post and remove a question after I answered a questions? If you did so to make my response look worse out of context, than just man up and say so. I don’t care about fame or fortune (well, that’s not true).
I meant to put it back after I added and didnt realize I took it out. Not that I owe u the explanation but hey… it is what it is. If I wanted it to be taken out of context I wouldve completely re written the comment. You still haven’t answerd mine.
I meant to put it back after I added and didnt realize I took it out.
The ruling on the blog is being challenged…
Waiting on the ruling of how he screwed my dead mother.
Maybe he’s into necrophilia?
Whatever floats his boat.
Why did you edit the post and remove a question after I answered a questions? If you did so to make my response look worse out of context, than just man up and say so.
TWEEEEEET!
*Throws flag*
GrandTango Internet Comment Foul.
Why did you edit the post and remove a question after I answered a questions? If you did so to make my response look worse out of context, than just man up and say so.
TWEEEEEET!
*Throws flag*
GrandTango Internet Comment Foul.
Your point just proves that Republicans were WRONG when they said Black people voted for President O because he’s “Black.” Black folks don’t vote simply on “color.” Black folks don’t vote Republican…it’s a simple as that. Republicans can care less about blacks and latinos….they [R] cater to rich white old men.
Well when democrats give away free stuff on our dime would you go back? Furthermore it was proven by some that did vote due to color. Every interview there they would be. Harping on the old I voted for him cause hes black comment. Again instead of building up the community by uplifting, they leave him high and dry because hes on the wrong side. They destroy their own. Cant someone make something of themselves without blacks bitchin about it?
P!$$ed much….LMAO…..
I love seeing you stupid-@$$, brain-dead CLICHES spew the $#!* Chris Matthews and Rachel Mad-Cow feed you….You ARE the epitome of a F*#king IDIOT….Hahahahaha…..
PS: Why did you turn your back on Alvin Green? He EARNED his position in your party, and racist pieces of $#!* like you p!$$#d on him…Classy…
So what’s the hit count on SCPD up to today? 5?
That’s not cool, man. You know he can’t count that high.
You know he can’t count that high.
TBG was under the impression that if he counted fingers AND toes, GT could get to 26.
Lmao. Thank u tonto.
Oh thats right tango since its a fact, he wont answer the question.
“If you didn’t support Alvin Greene, you’re racist!”
-GrandTango, affirmative action advocate
Scott proves that it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white in SC, just as long as you’re red and have green.
Touche!!!!
Yesterday, tens of thousands of white people turned out to vote for Scott.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of black people failed to turn out to vote for a white man, Sheheen.
What an ungrateful Democratic base, and I ask why did we have a civil rights revolution in the 60s if blacks won’t vote?
It is all about the content of your character.
I was glad to vote for Mr Scott. He is one of the very few politicians that I don’t have major disdain for at the moment. That could change, as it has with others, but I hope it will not. He won major respect from me for not endorsing Traitor Lindsey.
TIM SCOTT ADDRESSES RACE IN WAKE OF HISTORIC VICTORY
‘Bout time someone in our government took notice of that little whiner, Jeff Gordon.
Oh come on, brad needed his a $$ whooped.
They both need ass kickings. I met Gordon when he used to race Baja, he was a huge prick at the time. In fairness to him he was much younger…so maybe his prick tendencies have waned.
Ill give you that one. ;)
Does anyone have a video of T-Rav’s concession speech?
Good question, Shifty! Did he give one?
I didn’t hear about one but it would be the courteous thing to do.
The most important thing about Tim Scott is not that he’s black or a Republican, but that he’s from Charleston.
I can tell you that my granddaddy, a kind and gentle man, would never dreamed of voting for a black man 50 years ago. No my granddaddy did not hate black folks, in fact he was known to help poor blacks to the point of sacrifice at times. My point is that I agree with Tim Scott in that he has not let society define him. His granddaddy picked cotton (most likely for wages far less than the white cotton pickers). Senator Scott’s story is one of inspiration. It is “the American Dream.”
One word: HOUSEBOY
Just another empty suit
“It’s a blow job,don’t try to eat it,boy”