Rep. Cori Bush said America is “racist AF” on Twitter Sunday (May 2) days after Republican Senator Tim Scott said the nation isn’t racist in his rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s congressional address.
“Our communities wouldn’t have needed to spark a national movement to save Black lives if America weren’t racist AF,” Bush wrote in the tweet.
Bush’s sentiments came after Scott, and subsequently Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris agreed that America isn’t a racist country. Harris did add that the US does “have to speak the truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today,” in an interview last week sparking backlash online.
The politicians’ claims that the country isn’t racist come in the weeks after the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, the fatal police-involved shootings of Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, Adam Toledo, and Andrew Brown, Jr. all this year, as well as multiple attacks on Asian Americans across the US.
Bush, who represents Missouri’s 1st Congressional District which covers St. Louis and nearby suburbs, recently applauded St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ decision to cut the city’s police department’s budget by $4 million.
Jones also moved to get rid of 98 currently empty officer positions on the force and will put the funds aside to create affordable housing opportunities, provide resources to those experiencing homelessness, and establish programs for victims.
“For decades, our city funneled more and more money into our police department under the guise of public safety, while massively underinvesting in resources that will truly keep our communities safe,” Bush wrote in a statement. “Previous administrations spent more per capita on policing than all comparable cities, building a police force that is larger than that of any city comparable to St. Louis.”
Other cities, including Minneapolis, Minnesota, voted to reduce their police department budgets, as calls to defund the police rang out during last summer’s protests.
Multiple cities across the US have also implemented police alternative programs, sending mental health professionals to respond to those in crisis, reducing potentially deadly encounters between police and people who struggle with their mental health.
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