South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican senator, took issue with remarks made by the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, which referred to the GOP police reform bill as a “token, half-hearted approach.”
“Y’all still wearing those kente cloths over there @SenatorDurbin?” Scott tweeted, referencing Democratic lawmakers who were criticized for wearing kente cloths earlier in the month when they announced their own police reform package in the House.
The Democratic leaders later knelt while wearing the cloths in the Capitol Visitor Center in a moment of silence for 46-year-old George Floyd, a black man whose death while in police custody in Minneapolis set off a string of city protests and riots all over the country.
Scott previously blasted liberal critics who have called him a “token” for Republican lawmakers to exploit during negotiations over the police reform legislation.
“Not surprising the last 24 hours have seen a lot of ‘token’ ‘boy’ or ‘you’re being used’ in my mentions,” Scott tweeted. ‘Let me get this straight…you DON’T want the person who has faced racial profiling by police, been pulled over dozens of times, or been speaking out for YEARS drafting this?”
