Coaston: Sen. Tim Scott on Police Reform—Noted
Tim Scott, the only African-American senator in the United States republican party, is playing a very difficult political hand with great skill given who his allies and who his constituents are. This is very much worth reading as a window. It is a window into, if not his mind, at least his public presentation of self:
Jane Coaston: Sen. Tim Scott on Police Reform & Why Ending Qualified Immunity Is a Nonstarter for the GOP https://www.vox.com/2020/7/7/21311493/tim-scott-race-policing-justice-act-reform: ‘Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican serving in the US Senate, has an additional, unenviable task beyond his usual legislative portfolio: talking to his colleagues, and Republicans in general, about the issues of race and policing with which he has an intimate familiarity. “I, like many other Black Americans, have found myself choking on my own fears and disbelief when faced with the realities of an encounter with law enforcement,” he wrote in an op-ed in USA Today earlier this year, detailing experiences that began when he was 21 and have continued into his time in Congress.... Sen. Scott and I talked about police reform, qualified immunity for officers and why eliminating it is a “poison pill” for Republicans, race and racism, and our own family experiences of bad policing. He told me Floyd’s death had launched a “tectonic shift on the underlying issue” of police brutality. “I hope that we don’t miss this opportunity” to address it, he said…
.#noted #2020-08-16
