Did y’all know that GOP Sen. Tim Scott — the primary and solely Black Republican to characterize South Carolina within the U.S. Senate — spent years selling a federal program to help minority-owned companies? It’s type of bizarre, proper? The man who positioned himself to be MAGA America’s favourite Black good friend, who made it his mission to persuade Black folks that “America shouldn’t be a racist nation,” was, in response to Politico, “integral to congressional efforts to completely authorize the Commerce Division’s Minority Enterprise Growth Company” — which might be an odd company to even want in a non-racist nation.
I by no means would have predicted that Scott would champion a division devoted to variety, fairness and inclusion, contemplating the one time you ever hear him point out systemic racism towards Black folks is when it’s time to examine it to systemic racism towards — *checks notes* — Republicans. What’s predictable, nevertheless, is that, inside weeks of his second time period, President Donald Trump‘s administration primarily dismantled this system. What’s much more predictable is that Scott hasn’t dared to breathe a phrase about it.
From Politico:
Now, this system, which funds grants to enterprise homeowners and gives technical help, help and mentorship, has had 100% of its workers, about 50 folks, positioned on administrative depart or redistributed inside the Commerce Division, in response to a Commerce worker and a Democratic staffer granted anonymity to debate personnel issues.
For years, Tim Scott has prioritized efforts to develop entry to capital and financial mobility for underserved communities, just like the one he says he grew up in, and minority companies, like his personal Primary Avenue insurance coverage company. The MBDA dates again to the Nixon administration and was one outlet for this mission. However Scott has stayed silent publicly in regards to the gutting of the company.
“They’re watching this occur, and they’re doing nothing. That’s cowardice. And it cuts particularly deep when the folks you as soon as believed had been your champions flip their backs in silence,” the Commerce Division worker stated of Scott’s and different Republicans’ silence on cuts to this system.
Look, possibly it surprises me that Scott was ever out right here campaigning for what Trump will surely think about to be DEI as a result of the one public model of him I can ever keep in mind seeing is one who holds water for white nationalism and gushes over Trump just like the president was his first celeb crush. Possibly that’s why I utterly missed the time he stated this throughout a 2020 look on The View:
“Small companies — barber retailers and sweetness salons and landscapers — are in abundance within the African American group. They’re a few of the hardest working folks you already know and they should perceive and know that the sources are there.”
In the course of the pandemic, “Scott identified he secured an extra $10 million in a Covid-19 reduction invoice to assist the MBDA join minority-owned companies to the Paycheck Safety Program, which offered monetary help to corporations in the course of the disaster,” Politico famous.
In actual fact, it’s price noting that it’s not simply Scott who principally deserted his pro-DEI agenda as soon as Trump determined to base his whole 2025 marketing campaign round placating white grievances, combating fictional “anti-white” racism, and dismantling every part meant to appropriate precise systemic racism. There have been bipartisan efforts to again variety initiatives earlier than making white nationalism nice once more grew to become the brand new venture for 2025.
Extra from Politico:
Tim Scott and different senators championed bipartisan laws, which handed as a part of a 2021 infrastructure and jobs invoice that completely licensed the Minority Enterprise Growth Company and expanded it to ascertain rural enterprise facilities at traditionally Black faculties and universities. Scott stated at a 2020 U.S. Chamber of Commerce hearth chat that “by having extra MBDAs positioned across the nation, particularly within the rural areas, you’ll carry experience to these would-be entrepreneurs and also you’ll higher equip them for fulfillment.”
Oh effectively — I suppose we’ll by no means see the model of Scott most of us by no means knew existed once more, as a result of the very last thing he’ll ever do is upset his MAGA daddy by expressing disappointment at Trump’s and MAGA America’s racism.
Not that America is a racist nation or something like that.
SEE ALSO:
Op-Ed: Decreasing ‘DEI’ To A Catchphrase Undermines Its True Objective
Trump Admin Ends Wastewater Settlement For Black Alabama City, Calling It DEI