Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of three Black Senators in the Senate and one of two Black men, recently met with President Donald Trump to discuss what happened in Charlottesville Virginia when a bunch of White Supremacists and Nazi gathered to protest. They were there they said to protest the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate Civil War hero. Yet, as we know what they were there for was far more ugly and insidious.
Protesters came from states around the country. Their allegiance was and is to hate and to the spreading of racist drivel. The horror of seeing young men and women making the Nazi salute while carrying Confederate flags was incomprehensible in this day and age to many Americans. But that only means they haven’t been paying attention. The hate, racism and ugly underbelly of America have always existed. What is new is that they have found the courage of their convictions in the presidency of Donald Trump. He has breathed new life into their cause, their movement.
Scott should have known better than to think that there was any point in sitting down with Trump. He described the meeting as positive and constructive. Really how so?
According to The New York Times,
In his remarks to reporters, Mr. Scott made it clear he did not go to the White House for a photo op, but to decisively rebut Mr. Trump’s claim — to the president’s face — that “both sides,” racists and anti-racist protesters, were responsible for the violence that followed a torchlight protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
“My response was that, while that’s true, I mean I think if you look at it from a sterile perspective, there was an antagonist on the other side,” Mr. Scott said.
“However, the real picture has nothing to do with who is on the other side,” he said.
“It has to do with the affirmation of hate groups who over three centuries of this country’s history have made it their mission to create upheaval in minority communities as their reason for existence,” he continued. “I shared my thoughts of the last three centuries of challenges from white supremacists, white nationalists, KKK, Nazis. So there’s no way to find an equilibrium when you have three centuries of history versus the situation that is occurring today.”
Trump suggested that they should keep talking. Then went on later in the day to once again equate the actions of “both sides.”
Read more at The New York Times
