A Democratic state lawmaker had some harsh words for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during a debate over a statue in his honor.

The Georgia Senate debated a bill on Wednesday that would place a statue of the justice in the state’s capitol. However, State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D) opposed the bill and criticized Thomas.

“In the Black community, we have an expression — and I don’t want to use this label too deeply here because I’m just trying to tell you what we have in the African American community,” Jones began. “When we talk about a person of color that goes back historically to the days of slavery and that person betraying his own community, we have a term in the Black community. That term that we use is called ‘Uncle Tom.'”

He went on:

“And ‘Uncle Tom’ is either a fictional or nonfictional character. I don’t really know the origins of ‘Uncle Tom.’ But it talks about a person who back during the days of slavery sold his soul to the slave masters. That’s the fictional story of an ‘Uncle Tom.”

Watch the video below:

Jones said, “When we think about a person in the Black community who’s accomplished, but yet policies seek to subvert — some may even say suppress — the achievements and accomplishments of people of color, I couldn’t help but to think about that term.”

“Y’all just don’t get it. And I don’t expect people of non-color to get the sensitivity that we feel,” he added.

Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) tweeted, “The Left is so outraged by a proposal to build a statue of Clarence Thomas at the Georgia Capitol, that one unhinged lawmaker compared him to an ‘Uncle Tom’” who ‘sold his soul to the slave masters.’”

Advertisement

“Watch for yourself: the hatred and radicalism of the far-Left on full display,” she added.

Benjamin Weingarten, the deputy editor of RealClearInvestigations, wrote, “Disgusting.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) tweeted, “Speaks for itself.”

The Georgia Senate voted on Wednesday to pass the legislation. It will now head to the state House.