MSNBC guest rationalizes racist ‘Uncle Tim’ slur aimed at Sen. Tim Scott

And racist.

Yes, it’s an overtly racist label. It’s also an unintentionally ironic attack, considering it was Scott who asserted this week that “America is not a racist country.” It’s as if left-wingers heard the senator say this and took it as a challenge, responding collectively with a defiant, “Oh yeah? We’ll show you how racist we can be!”

Naturally, there is nothing so vile that can be said about a Republican lawmaker, and particularly a black Republican lawmaker, that some MSNBC guest isn’t willing to defend.

Meet MSNBC regular Christina Greer, who argued this week that the people calling Scott “Uncle Tim” have a point.

The moment occurred after MSNBC host Jason Johnson voiced discomfort with the racist nickname.

The slur is actually just a public display of “the internal conversations that many black people have about Tim Scott and the Republican Party,” Greer argued, pointing to the senator’s alignment with the GOP and his support of the Trump presidency.

Greer, who started off first by calling the insult “problematic,” continued, arguing the senator has earned the “disrespect” of his critics because he continues to defend the same party whose policies have kept black families, including his own, down all these generations.

“That’s where the lack of respect comes from,” Greer said. “When he talks about growing up in a one-bedroom house, ask yourself, why did you grow up in a one-bedroom house? Because your party doesn’t believe in equality. Ask yourself why your grandfather didn’t know how to read? It’s because your party actually defunds education. Ask yourself why it is that you went to failing schools? It’s because your party doesn’t value education, especially for black youths, especially for people in the South.”

This would probably come as a surprise to the dozens of Democratic governors and state legislators who controlled South Carolina and zealously enforced Jim Crow laws for several decades following the Civil War. (Fun fact: In 1974, James Burrows Edwards became the state’s first Republican governor since 1876. Also, the Democratic governor who put the Confederate flag atop the state capitol building was a Democratic senator until 2005, and the first governor who tried to remove it was a Republican, as was the governor who completely removed it from the Capitol grounds. But whatever.)

The MSNBC guest also seemingly argued Scott deserves the “Uncle Tim” tag because he has “weaponized Christianity.”

“The fact that Tim Scott tried to make it an individual conversation, when it should be a larger, institutional problem that his party is part of and one of the main reasons why we have such inequity, explains why this ‘Uncle Tim’ hashtag was trending and explains the frustration also that many Democratic Christians had where he’s trying to weaponize Christianity in a way lots of Democratic Christians are, like, ‘What are you talking about?” she said.

Here’s a better question: What is she talking about?

“Like,” Greer continued, “we can actually believe in, you know, Christ or whatever the indoctrination is, without actually having policies that destroy not just our country, but so many people across the globe.”

Amusingly, she concluded by asserting that she doesn’t know what’s in Scott’s heart. But, of course, she knows enough to state definitively that he’s a token of the Republican Party.

“I have no idea what’s in the heart of Tim Scott,” she said. “But let’s be clear. That entire party is being held hostage by Donald Trump because none of them can plan for their future in 2024 until the former president decides whether he wants to get off the sidelines or not.”

Greer added, “I think also Tim Scott is their poster boy. Here’s their one. So, if they’re going to talk about a racial issue, he’s the one. ‘Give it to Mikey! Put him out front! Let him talk about policing and cops and whatever it may be!’ And so — and he’s willing to do that. He’s always been willing to do that.”