Black GOP Senator Talks About Being Pulled Over By Police 7 Times In One Year

[GMDino]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tim-scott-pulled-over_us_5786bfffe4b08608d332eaa0?section=

Quote:WASHINGTON ― In the course of one year as an elected official, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was pulled over seven times by law enforcement. Another time, a Capitol Police officer demanded that Scott show him his ID because the special pin on Scott’s suit jacket ― a pin assigned to United States senators ― evidently wasn’t enough.

Scott shared these stories and more Wednesday evening during a roughly 18-minute speech on the Senate floor. He is the only black senator in the Republican conference, and one of just two in the upper chamber.

His speech on Wednesday was the second in a series of three in response to a lone gunman killing five police officers in Dallas last week, as well as the police shootings of Alton Sterling, who was killed outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was shot during a traffic stop in Minnesota. Scott delivered his first speech on Tuesday and plans to deliver the final one Thursday.

“This speech is perhaps the most difficult, because it’s the most personal,” Scott said during his Wednesday remarks. 

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Scott’s address on Wednesday came after four other senators urged their colleagues to take a vote on criminal justice reform ― something many lawmakers say is badly needed.

“There is a deep divide between the black community and law enforcement ― a trust gap,” Scott said. “We cannot ignore these issues. Because while so many officers do good ― and we should be very thankful in support of all those officers that do good ― some simply do not. I’ve experienced it myself.”

Scott said he chose to talk about his encounters with police, experiences that left him feeling humiliated and “very scared,” because he’s heard people trying to paint Castile and Walter Scott ― a black man who was killed by a police officer in South Carolina last year while running away ― as criminals.  

“OK, then,” Scott said. “I will share with you some of my own experiences.”

He continued:

Quote:I shuddered when I heard Eric Garner say “I cannot breathe.” I wept when I watched Walter Scott turn and run away and get shot and killed. And I broke when I heard the 4-year-old daughter of Philando Castile’s girlfriend tell her mother, “It’s OK, I’m right here with you”...

In the course of one year, I’ve been stopped seven times by law enforcement officers. Not four, not five, not six, but seven times in one year as an elected official. Was I speeding sometimes? Sure. But the vast majority of the times, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or some other reason just as trivial...

It’s easy to identify a U.S. senator by our pin. I recall walking into an office building just last year after being here for five years on the Capitol, and the officer looked at me, with a little attitude, and said: “The pin, I know. You, I don’t. Show me your ID.” I’ll tell you, I was thinking to myself, “Either he thinks I’m committing a crime, impersonating a member of Congress” ― or, or what? Well, I’ll tell you that later that evening I received a phone call from his supervisor apologizing for the behavior. Mr. President, that is at least the third phone call that I’ve received from a supervisor or the chief of police since I’ve been in the Senate.

Scott is hardly alone. When The Huffington Post asked several black congressmen about their experiences with racism after the 2013 killing of Trayvon Martin, they had remarkably similar stories to tell.

Scott went on to tell another story of when he was invited to an event with two of his staffers and two officers. “All four were white, and me,” he said.

When they arrived, the organizers didn’t want to let Scott in, but they allowed everyone else. The officers refused to go in without him.

“This is a situation that happens all across the country, whether we want to recognize it or not,” Scott said. “It may not happen 1,000 times a day, but it happens too many times a day.”

Scott ended his speech by calling on his colleagues to “recognize that just because you do not feel the pain, the anguish, of another does not mean it does not exist.”

Ignoring it, he said, will only leave people “blind,” and the nation “very vulnerable.”

As Scott began to walk off the floor, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who was scheduled to speak next on a different topic, took a moment to praise the South Carolina senator for his “frank discussion.”  

“We don’t have enough diversity here,” Boxer said. “Let me just be clear: As much as all of us want to walk in each other’s shoes, because each of us has different experiences in our lives, it really matters who’s in the room, who’s at the microphone and who’s sharing the truth.
And you have shared a truth with us today.”

Watch Scott’s speech above.

[Belsnickel]

This is very interesting because it runs counter to something a lot of people like to say with regards to racism, and that is the prejudice is more about socioeconomic status than race. Which, to an extent, I absolutely agree with. But things like this show that it definitely is not just that. There is racial prejudice like this out there that we need to get sorted.

[BmorePat87]

“recognize that just because you do not feel the pain, the anguish, of another does not mean it does not exist.”

[BmorePat87]

(07-14-2016, 12:57 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is very interesting because it runs counter to something a lot of people like to say with regards to racism, and that is the prejudice is more about socioeconomic status than race. Which, to an extent, I absolutely agree with. But things like this show that it definitely is not just that. There is racial prejudice like this out there that we need to get sorted.

Lower socioeconomic status breeds crime. This is true. Some minorities are more likely to be a part of a lower socioeconomic group. So if I am going to discriminate, I am going to assume that a minority is more likely to commit a crime. 

The disconnect between socioeconomic status and minority status then occurs, and you're discriminating on the basis of their minority status under the assumption that minority status breeds the criminal element. 

Anecdote time. My friends and I have a group chat and we were discussing this whole race and police situation. My friend who is a middle class black man who works in education worries about what will happen if he is pulled over. He's not a criminal, he lives in a good area, he works with schools and camps, and he has friends who are cops. He still worries. 

[*Nately120*]

(07-14-2016, 12:57 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is very interesting because it runs counter to something a lot of people like to say with regards to racism, and that is the prejudice is more about socioeconomic status than race. Which, to an extent, I absolutely agree with. But things like this show that it definitely is not just that. There is racial prejudice like this out there that we need to get sorted.

A black man in a crappy car is on his way to commit a crime, and a black man in a nice car obviously just committed the crime of stealing a nice car!  Wasn't this addressed in an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

[JustWinBaby]

Obviously profiling occurs...and while there's a lot of debate about it's merits clearly 7X in a year is excessive....and if you're going to profile, the majority of violent crimes are poor males 18-26 (and this applies to all races).

Although maybe this isn't profiling but just being harassed not because he's African American but because he's a black Republican 

[fredtoast]

Maybe 7 times was not excessive. If I was a Senator I would drive 100 MPH everywhere I went. I may never get charged, but I bet I would still get pulled over a lot.

And I an extra white.

[JustWinBaby]

(07-14-2016, 02:30 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Maybe 7 times was not excessive.  If I was a Senator I would drive 100 MPH everywhere I went.  I may never get charged, but I bet I would still get pulled over a lot.

And I an extra white.

Not to mention, police should be profiling the hell out of ALL politicians 

[SunsetBengal]

This is interesting, to both sides.

http://tribunist.com/news/harvard-study-on-police-shootings-and-race-offers-shocking-conclusion/?utm_source=CDH

[*michaelsean*]

He should slow down.

[Sovereign Nation]

Only 7 times?

[GMDino]

(07-14-2016, 08:19 PM)Sovereign Nation Wrote: Only 7 times?

Well there may have been black cops on patrol sometimes.  

[fredtoast]

(07-14-2016, 07:22 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: This is interesting, to both sides.

http://tribunist.com/news/harvard-study-on-police-shootings-and-race-offers-shocking-conclusion/?utm_source=CDH

This article cherry picks stats and spins them into a lie.

The study they cited DOES show that cops are much more likely to use physical force and even draw their weapons more often with black suspects and white suspects. The study shows a clear racial bias on most level except actual shootings.

[Sovereign Nation]

(07-14-2016, 10:12 PM)GMDino Wrote: Well there may have been black cops on patrol sometimes.  

  Either you are admitting that only white cops are bad or you are admitting that only white cops do their jobs.

[JustWinBaby]

(07-15-2016, 12:40 AM)fredtoast Wrote:  The study shows a clear racial bias on most level except actual shootings.

Or in other words, the BLM movement is full of shit.

[BmorePat87]

(07-15-2016, 07:08 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Or in other words, the BLM movement is full of shit.

Not necessarily. The movement is about police misconduct as a whole. Also, the author of the study admitted that there is the issue in determining the bias in the actual stops themselves. What he means by that is that all reported burglaries are going to be responded to, so there's no racial bias in responding to calls like that. He says we cannot determine the proportion to which you are likely to get pulled over for one of these traffic stops of stop and frisks because cops are not reporting anytime they saw something that could potentially result in a traffic stop but chose not to press it. So if there is a nearly equal share in being shot by a cop in these non-threatening situations, is there an unequal share in that stop actually occurring. 

[JustWinBaby]

(07-15-2016, 08:20 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Not necessarily. The movement is about police misconduct as a whole. 

In theory, yes.  But in practice they only respond to widely covered questionable cop killings.  All these protests last week weren't because someone just got pulled over or beaten.

[BmorePat87]

(07-15-2016, 08:28 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: In theory, yes.  But in practice they only respond to widely covered questionable cop killings.  All these protests last week weren't because someone just got pulled over or beaten.

It's far easier to rally people behind killings. This doesn't mean that they aren't working on the broader issue they have with police day to day, you just only see what they do in response to killings. 

[GMDino]

(07-15-2016, 06:28 AM)Sovereign Nation Wrote:   Either you are admitting that only white cops are bad or you are admitting that only white cops do their jobs.

Or I was being sarcastic.  

[fredtoast]

(07-15-2016, 07:08 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Or in other words, the BLM movement is full of shit.

Not really.

Basically it proves that people who claim there is no racial bias by police are full of shit.