A pair of GOP lawmakers have made headlines in the past few weeks for their comments about racism in American society. First, Sen. Lindsey Graham was met with major backlash when he told Chris Wallace of FOX News that systemic racism did not exist.
“No, not in my opinion,” Graham told Wallace when asked if systemic racism still exist.
“We just elected a two-term African American president. The vice president is of African-American-Indian descent. So our systems are not racist. America is not a racist country. Within every society, you have bad actors.”
Days after Graham made his comments on FOX News, Sen. Tim Scott was heavily criticized when he delivered the Republican Party's rebuttal to President Joe Biden's congressional address this week. During his speech, Scott told those who would listen that America is "not a racist country." However, many would not listen to what Scott had to say. In the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately killed communities of color and a policing crisis that has resulted in the deaths of Andrew Brown, Isaiah Brown and many others, many American citizens were outraged.
Not long after Scott made his controversial comments, a number of Democratic lawmakers delivered responses. During a recent interview with Good Morning America, Vice President Kamala Harris said that she does not think that America is a racist country either, but American communities need to do more to speak out against inequality.
"First of all, no, I don't think America is a racist country, but we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today," Harris replied.
"It does not help to heal our country ... to ignore the realities of that."
Ending the week, President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with NBC and much like Harris he was asked about Scott's remarks. Similarly, he also denied the characterization that America is a racist country.
“No, I don’t think the American people are racist...But I think after 400 years, African Americans have been left in a position where they are so far behind the 8 ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity," he said.
“I don’t think America is racist, but I think the overhang from all the Jim Crow and before that, slavery, had a cost and we have to deal with it.”
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