GOP senator: Saying racial bias exists is 'slander' against America

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) lashed out on Monday against the concept of implicit bias and said that acknowledging that others may have racial biases is a “slander” against America.

Cotton’s comments came during a segment of Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” while he discussed the nomination of Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as the No. 3 official at the Department of Justice.

Implicit bias refers to harboring attitudes and stereotypes that may affect decision-making, without necessarily being aware of them.

Studies have shown implicit biases can have a strong impact on policing, one of the major areas where Gupta would have oversight if she is confirmed.

But Cotton said implicit bias is a “foolish claim” that “slander[s] our entire nation, to say that every single person has racial biases.”

During her confirmation hearing, Cotton had asked Gupta to reveal “against what races do you harbor racial bias?” Gupta responded that she acknowledges holding stereotypes that were a product of her culture.

Though Gupta gave a clear answer, Cotton she was “tongue tied.”

Cotton said that instead Gupta should have been “saying America is a great nation and Americans are a good people.”

Cotton has a history of attacking discussions of systemic racism. He’s claimed it’s “anti-American” to oppose systemic racism and even called the act of fighting racism a racist act.

From the March 15 edition of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends”:

BRIAN KILMEADE, Fox News: What’d you learn from that, senator?

 

TOM COTTON: I learned that the emperor has no clothes in all these claims that America is a terrible, horrible, racist nation. But look, all of you and all of your viewers know this: Whether your kids hear it at school, or you hear it from a politically correct H.R. manager at your corporate employer, or anywhere else, all these vague and casually tossed around claims of racism.

 

But when I asked her, very simply, against which races do you hold racial bias, obviously she got tongue-tied, she couldn’t answer the question, it just goes to expose what a foolish claim it is. To slander our entire nation, to say that every single person has racial biases.

 

As opposed to saying America is a great nation and Americans are a good people, this is a radical trust fund liberal nominee who will use the laws of the United States to advance her far-left agenda, that’s why she faces such opposition on our committee and in the Senate as a whole.

 

This is not the kind of person that Americans expect to be enforcing our laws.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.