How low do you have to go when hurling racially tinged invective toward Sen. Tim Scott before you get your platform taken away from you?
That’s a question liberals should be asking. In the hours after the South Carolina Republican gave the GOP response to President Joe Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, “Uncle Tim” was trending on Twitter.
The social media giant eventually stepped in and barred the phrase it from appearing in its “trending topics” section, but not before plenty of blue checkmarks used the epithet against one of three black men in the Senate.
It’s worth noting that the great offense Scott committed, in liberal eyes, was when he said “America is not a racist country,” but that he’d “experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called ‘Uncle Tom’ and the N-word — by progressives, by liberals.”
Apparently, the left needed to prove him right.
“I get called Uncle Tom and the N word by progressives…I know firsthand, our healing is not finished,” Sen. Tim Scott says in GOP rebuttal of President Biden’s address to Congress, adding later, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.” pic.twitter.com/EOet8AriSb
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 29, 2021
Affronts continued apace.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar lectured Scott on what racism was, apparently undeterred by the optics of a very white woman (and one who once donned blackface, at that) lecturing the only black Republican elected to the Senate in the South since Reconstruction on the ins and outs of bigotry.
MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross went on a Saturday rant about how Scott was a “tap dancer,” a “token” and the kind of person “Harriet Tubman would have left behind.”
None of those individuals has faced any repercussions, however, so where’s the line? Gary O’Connor, a Democratic Party official in Texas, may have found it.
According to Fox News, O’Connor — chairman of the Lamar County Democratic Party — is facing calls to resign after a now-deleted Facebook post last week included a racial slur against Scott.
“I had hoped that Scott might show some common sense, but it seems clear he is little more than an oreo with no real principles,” O’Connor wrote.
The post might be deleted, but the screen shot is much easier to find than O’Connor would probably like.
Racial slur dude is named…Gary O’Connor: https://t.co/newhqAhBbU pic.twitter.com/MMbB8X2Yr1
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 1, 2021
If you’ve maintained blissfully unaware of the etymology of that slur, “Oreo” in a derogatory context is a way of saying an individual may black on the outside, but is still “white” — apparently meaning conservative and Republican in Scott’s case — on the inside.
GOP Rep. Pat Fallon, whose district includes Lamar County, called on O’Connor to resign in a Friday statement.
“Gary O’Connor’s comment against Senator Tim Scott is abhorrent, insulting, and unforgivable,” the statement said.
“Both he and the entire Lamar County Democratic Party should be ashamed of this racist behavior. O’Connor must apologize and step down immediately. Additionally, I call on both the Democratic Party of Texas and the NAACP to condemn these words, and the state party should take swift action to censure him. This kind of behavior is not tolerable in Texas, the United States, or any political party.”
That hasn’t happened, you mightn’t be surprised to discover, and the Texas Democratic Party has yet to respond to Fox News’ request for comments.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, also called for O’Connor’s resignation.
“This is disgusting, hateful, and completely unacceptable,” he tweeted Saturday. “O’Connor must apologize to @SenatorTimScott & step down immediately.”
This is disgusting, hateful, and completely unacceptable.
O’Connor must apologize to @SenatorTimScott & step down immediately. @texasdemocrats censure him.https://t.co/wJLTqaHlLb
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 1, 2021
O’Connor isn’t necessarily a big fish, but he’s also one of the few individuals of note to cross the line and use a slur that wasn’t “Uncle Tim.” Twitter noticed:
Where is the outrage…if this a gop county chair the media would be exploding over this racist rant by gary O’Connor and his followers.#txlege #PayingThePiper https://t.co/Vg1rDvm3FS
— Dave Carney (@granitewinger) May 1, 2021
@texasdemocrats is there another cross burning in Lamar County tonight? Will Gary O’Connor be in his Sunday hood and robes?
— FrawdDawg (@PeterJ1955) May 3, 2021
What in fresh hell? Texas Democrat, Gary O’Connor, Called on to Resign For Calling Sen Scott an ‘Oreo’ https://t.co/zML3PBLkht
— A.C. Spollen (@ACSpollen) May 2, 2021
And yet, there was also plenty of this:
Whoever Gary O’Connor is, he didn’t lie. What he should’ve done was just share the status of a black person saying it, though.
— Dre (@DNRuffin) May 2, 2021
Is that how it works? If anyone who’s not black launders a racial slur through a black straw man, it’s kosher for a Democrat?
Any of the racist dog-whistles blown by liberals in regards to Scott’s speech were deserving of opprobrium, but O’Connor’s case is uniquely bad:
A white Democratic Party chairman used a racial slur against a black Republican on social media, then deleted it without an apology, but the Texas Democratic Party refuses to step in to either force O’Connor out or make a statement condemning him.
This echoes the national party’s silence on anything Scott-related, as if liberals don’t even realize it’s going on — or hope most Americans don’t.
We’ll see if O’Connor becomes the first man to have his platform taken away from him for outrageous behavior in the wake of Tim Scott’s speech on Wednesday. Whatever the case, though, you can’t say the left hasn’t done a bang-up job of proving Scott’s point about liberal racism for him.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
