Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is defending controversial comments he made on Fox News earlier this month. Scott said “woke supremacy” is as bad as “white supremacy” and should be taken just as seriously.
Scott was responding to comments made by MSNBC host Joy Reid where she said he participated in a GOP press conference denouncing the increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour to show a “patina of diversity.”
Scott fired back on Fox News, telling host Trey Gowdy that “woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy. We need to take that seriously.”
Scott is now defending those comments.
“My comments were a sound-bite-length reaction to yet another media figure accusing me of being a token for Republicans,” he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “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.”
Scott, one of only three black senators and the first black man to be elected senator in south Carolina said that he was not comparing the history of white supremacy and that he “is painfully aware that four centuries of racism, bigotry and killings does not compare to the nascent woke movement.”
Scott said “woke supremacy” is his critics belief that diversity doesn’t matter unless it is grounded in progressive thinking.
“It is the “tolerant” left’s intolerance for dissent,” Scott wrote. “It is a progressive conception of diversity that does not include diversity of thought. It is discrimination falsely marketed as inclusion.”
According to Scott ‘woke supremacy’ is also seen when his critics discount his accomplishments in the Senate that help the Black community “because it conflicts with the caricature they’ve created of what it means to be Black and to be a Republican.”
Scott’s op-ed came after he was excoriated by Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart in an op-ed. Capehart called Scott a “fool” for saying ‘woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy.’
