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