Today, on the editorial pages on The New York Times, Professor Adolph L. Reed, Jr. was allowed to launch a racialist attack against Republican Rep. Tim Scott, the black Republican recently named as Jim DeMint’s replacement in the U.S. Senate. Reed clearly wants to make the case that because of his politics, Scott isn’t black, nor is his appointment historic.
Obviously, this is all about keeping blacks “in line,” condemning blacks for straying from how they’re expected to think, and ensuring they keep voting for the right people (Democrats).
Hrm, that sounds kinda familiar:
But this “first black” rhetoric tends to interpret African-American political successes — including that of President Obama — as part of a morality play that dramatizes “how far we have come.” It obscures the fact that modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress.
Because…
Mr. Scott’s background is also striking: raised by a poor single mother, he defeated, with Tea Party backing, two white men in a 2010 Republican primary: a son of Thurmond and a son of former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. But his politics, like those of the archconservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, are utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans. Mr. Scott has been staunchly anti-tax, anti-union and anti-abortion.
