A black GOP senator slammed his white colleagues for staying silent on the racism of Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who the day prior was quoted embracing white nationalism and white supremacy in The New York Times.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) wrote Friday that his party is "often still struggling when it comes to civility and fairness" -- a message driven home when the Times published an interview with King where he claimed he didn't know when "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" became "offensive" terminology.
Scott noted that examples of white supremacist violence abound: the racist white man in Kentucky who killed two black people in a parking lot, the "Unite the Right" Charlottesville rally in 2017 and the massacre in a black church in the congressman's home state of South Carolina.
"These are just a sliver of the havoc that white nationalists and white supremacists have strewn across our nation for hundreds of years," the Republican wrote. "Four little girls killed in a bombing in Birmingham, Ala., thousands lynched and countless hearts and minds turned cruel and hateful."
Scott wrote that rhetoric like King's should explain to people in his party why they get accused of racism.
"Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism — it is because of our silence when things like this are said," he mused.
"It is tempting to write King — or other extremists on race issues, such as black-nationalist Louis Farrakhan — as lonely voices in the wilderness, but they are far more dangerous than that," Scott added.
Read the entire column via the Post.
