Sen. Tim Scott said he has been pulled over by police seven times in one year, stopped from entering congressional buildings and events, targeted, and received three apologies from police supervisors.
Though he has never been harmed, Scott said he has "felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you are being targeted for nothing more than being just yourself," according to a story in
The Wall Street Journal.
It's extremely rare for a sitting U.S. senator to endure such harassment, but that's life as the only black Republican in the upper house, a life the South Carolina lawmaker laid out for all to hear on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Rarer still is that Scott talked about his experiences at all, something he has been reticent to do in his three years as a senator, not wanting to add to the country's predilection of making racial distinctions.
"Our country is in many ways a very unstable place from a racial perspective," Scott said. "I wanted to at least illuminate some of the darker corners of our country in hopes to sparking a real conversation so that we would have an opportunity to heal and to reconcile."
Scott's speech was the second in a three-part series on race he's delivering to the Senate before it breaks for summer recess.
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