南卡罗来纳州参议员蒂姆·斯科特是唯一的黑人候选人争夺共和党总统候选人提名虽然他公开谈论美国的种族问题——有时抓住时机挑战他的竞争对手——但他在这个问题上传达的信息并没有经常把他与该领域的其他候选人区分开来。
自从他开始竞选白宫以来，斯科特和他的共和党对手一样，倾向于他的信念，即美国“不是一个种族主义国家”，反对所谓的“批判种族理论”和其他强调身份的观点。
“乔·拜登和激进左翼分子正在攻击帮助我攀登的每一级阶梯，”他在他的竞选演讲，五月。
“当我削减你们的税收时，他们称我为道具。当我重新资助警察时，他们叫我代币。当我反驳拜登总统时，他们甚至骂我脏话，”他说。”我打断他们的叙述。我威胁到他们的控制。我生活的真实打乱了他们的谎言!”
10月，斯科特在爱荷华州、新罕布什尔州和南卡罗来纳州偏离了通常的停留，访问了芝加哥南部的一个黑人教堂。
斯科特对新开端教会的教徒说:“极左分子发起了一场激进运动，美国在种族问题上取得的进步越多，一些领导人就越想否认这一点。”。“然而，从那以后，我们的国家在种族问题上取得了巨大的进步——但在过去的60年里，目无法纪、没有父亲和失业的情况变得更糟了，而不是更好了。”
他在芝加哥的演讲部分是为了澄清他在九月第二次共和党初选辩论中发表的有争议的言论。斯科特在60年代似乎暗示林登·约翰逊总统的“伟大社会”联邦福利计划对美国黑人来说比奴隶制更困难，这引起了批评。
前共和党全国委员会主席迈克尔·斯蒂尔是黑人，他称斯科特的辩论评论是“一派胡言”。
他在新开端教堂长达一个多小时的演讲也呼吁芝加哥的民主党领导人，在他看来，辜负了黑人社区。许多当选的官员都是黑人。
“如果一切都可以基于并归咎于系统性的种族主义，那么问题就不可能是自由派的错，”斯科特告诉观众他们想让我们坐下，闭嘴，只要我们投蓝色票就别忘了投票。我们得到的不是解决方案，而是分心和分歧。"
随后，与会者急于向斯科特提出尖锐的问题，斯科特在竞选活动中很少向黑人观众发表讲话。许多交流都很紧张。
律师罗德里克·温伯利说，他和妻子伊芙琳一起来到教堂，“出于对斯科特所取得成就的尊重”。当轮到他和南卡罗来纳州参议员说话时，温伯利向斯科特挑战。
“我在辩论和你的声明中都看到了，你在声明中表示，你不认为存在系统性的种族主义，”他说。“有统计数据显示，或者至少表明，存在一些系统性的问题。”
斯科特告诉他，“我是说存在种族主义，但这不是制度。”
在斯科特被他的员工带走之前，这两人在教育、红线(指金融贷款中的歧视)和财富不平等问题上来回摇摆。
交谈结束后，Wimberly告诉ABC新闻，他那天愿意投票给斯科特，但在他们互动后，他和他的妻子“此时”不会投票给他。
这种脱节说明了斯科特以及更广泛的共和党在争取黑人选民方面面临的挑战。根据ABC新闻的出口民调，在上次总统选举中，87%的黑人选民支持民主党人乔·拜登。
乔治敦大学教授、政治学家纳迪亚·布朗认为，斯科特在种族问题上传达的信息很可能根本不是针对黑人选民的。
布朗说，相反，这位迄今为止一直在努力赢得民意调查的参议员，将自己标榜为一名同意激发共和党基础的问题的非白人候选人。
根据538的分析，2020年，即最后一个总统选举年，绝大多数共和党初选选民(92%)是白人。
2011年9月6日，在任期的第一年，众议员蒂姆·斯科特在他南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿的办公室里。
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“蒂姆·斯科特和他的同党正在做的事情，他们试图利用大多数非洲裔美国人没有看到的这些情感推动因素。这不是为他们着陆，”布朗说。“我认为这是对其他保守派的呼吁，特别是白人保守派，他们想说，‘我有一个黑人参议员’，或者，‘我很乐意投票给黑人候选人。’"
在罕见的时刻，斯科特列举了他在共和党初选中与众不同的经历。
7月，他批评佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯(Ron DeSantis)支持改变该州的标准，该标准指示教育工作者向中学生教授被奴役的人“发展的技能，在某些情况下，可以用于他们的个人利益。”
斯科特向记者建议，德桑蒂斯应该重新考虑自己的立场。“奴隶制的真正含义是分离家庭，残害人类，甚至强奸他们的妻子。这简直是毁灭性的，”他说。
(德桑蒂斯为这些标准辩护，告诉ABC新闻的林西·戴维斯9月:“这并不是说奴隶制受益。据说这些人足智多谋。”)
尽管他在芝加哥演讲的观众主要是黑人，但斯科特典型竞选活动的人群绝大多数是白人。在这些活动中，斯科特经常宣布他将“像牧师一样说话”，这是黑人神职人员的著名传统。
约翰·霍普金斯大学的历史学教授、《黑人共和党人的孤独》一书的作者莉亚·莱特·里格分析了斯科特在初选中如何表现自己。
赖特里格尔说:“因为蒂姆·斯科特没有共和党人想要的候选人的某些特征，他不是白人，也没有结婚，他在其他事情上发挥了作用:他对黑人进行了某些比喻，他倾向于这种宗教身份，我认为这真的给白人观众带来了安慰。”
“斯科特必须谈论种族问题，但他必须以不疏远党内主要人物的方式来做，鉴于目前党内关于种族问题的标准路线是‘我们没有问题，事实上其他人才是真正的种族主义者’，这非常难做到，”赖特里格尔告诉美国广播公司新闻。
作为对斯科特在芝加哥教堂演讲的回应，众议员乔纳森·杰克逊说。在国会代表部分城市的黑人告诉ABC新闻，“他试图向一个极端右翼团体投降和磕头，他应该为自己感到羞耻。”
当他在种族问题上的立场受到批评时，斯科特以一种经常重复的方式回应，他认为，将责任归咎于政治左派，因为他们试图压制另一种观点。
斯科特在最近的一次筹款呼吁中说:“我被称为一个道具，一个象征，N字和更多的丑陋的名字，我无法分享。”
其他黑人保守派同意斯科特的观点。
“美国的过去显而易见，但今天没有人会坐起来说，‘嗯，我没有充分发挥我的潜力，因为我没有得到机会，’”共和党政治顾问、黑人雷纳德·杰克逊(Raynard Jackson)说。“我认为(斯科特)在正确的基调上击中了所有正确的音符。”
南卡罗来纳州萨姆特共和党主席威廉·奥登也是黑人，他在参议院竞选中投票给斯科特，并喜欢斯科特的“乐观信息”。
“他的信息驱散了人们谈论我们国家是种族主义者的谣言，”奥登说。
虽然斯科特告诉ABC新闻，他的团队讨论了他在芝加哥教堂的演讲“很长一段时间”，但他在他的竞选活动正在动摇的迹象中发表了演讲。
一个支持斯科特的超级政治行动委员会宣布将从电视上撤掉秋季广告，而他在全国以及爱荷华州、新罕布什尔州和南卡罗来纳州的支持率仍在个位数。根据538的平均值。他刚刚获得参加定于周三举行的第三次共和党初选辩论的资格。
在斯科特的芝加哥演讲之前，他的团队召开了一次电话会议，宣布了一项计划，从新罕布什尔州转移资源，并增加爱荷华州的人员配置，以便他们能够“全力以赴”。竞选经理詹妮弗·迪卡斯珀(Jennifer DeCasper)也加入了他的行列，罕见地出现在这个城市，标志着竞选团队眼中的一个重要时刻。
迪卡斯珀是本轮共和党总统竞选中唯一一位执掌大权的黑人女性，一些人认为斯科特团队的多样性说明了他对有色人种社区的承诺。
“蒂姆不仅仅相信多样性。他是多样化的，”顾问杰克逊说。“如果你去他的办公室，那只不过是多样性的定义，而不是强迫或做作的多样性。他就是这样的人。”
历史学教授赖特·里古尔说,《德卡斯珀》是斯科特如何处理这个问题的一个重要反映。
“鉴于有一位黑人女性在本质上引导着他更广阔的政治未来，这对他现在如何思考和谈论种族问题真的很重要，”她说。
斯科特的竞选团队拒绝对本文置评。
他最近在密西西比大学的讲话可能是最具象征性的，表明他将如何在一个不强调身份的政党中继续解决种族问题。
“我不想成为黑人保守派。我不想成为南方黑人，”他在十月下旬说道。“我想成为蒂姆·斯科特，而他恰好是黑人。”
Tim Scott is 2024's only Black Republican candidate, and he wants America to focus less on race
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is the only Black candidatevying for the GOP's presidential nominationand while he has talked openly about race in America -- sometimes seizing the moment to challenge his competitors -- his messaging on the issue hasn't often separated him from the other candidates in the field.
Since he's launched his bid for the White House, Scott, like his Republican rivals, has leaned into his belief that America is "not a racist country" and his opposition to so-called "critical race theory" and other views that emphasize identity.
"Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb," he said inhis campaign launch speech, in May.
"When I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I re-funded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the N-word," he said. "I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lies!"
In October, Scott deviated from usual stops in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to visit a Black church on the South Side of Chicago.
"There is a radical movement on the far left, and the more progress that America makes on race, the more some leaders want to deny it," Scott told the congregants of New Beginnings Church. "Our country has made, however, tremendous strides since then on the issue of race -- but lawlessness and fatherlessness and joblessness have gotten worse in the last 60 years and not better."
His speech in Chicago was intended, in part, to clarify controversial remarks he made at the second Republican Primary debate in September. Scott drew criticism then after he appeared to suggest that President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" federal welfare program in the '60s had been more difficult for Black Americans than slavery.
Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, who is Black, called Scott's debate comments a "load of crock."
His more than an hourlong speech at New Beginnings Church also called out Democratic leadership in Chicago for, in his view, failing the Black community. Many of those elected officials are Black.
"If everything can be based and blamed on systemic racism, the problems can't be the liberals' fault," Scott told the audience. "They want us to sit down, shut up and don't forget to vote as long as we're voting blue. Instead of solutions, we are offered distractions and division."
Afterward, attendees were eager to pepper Scott, who rarely addresses Black audiences on the campaign trail, with tough questions. Many of the exchanges were tense.
Attorney Rodrick Wimberly said he came to the church with his wife, Evelyn, "out of respect" for what Scott has accomplished. When it was his turn to speak with the South Carolina senator, Wimberly challenged Scott.
"I've seen both in the debate and also in statements you've made where you indicated that you don't feel that there's systematic racism," he said. "There is statistical data to show, or suggest at the very least, that there is some issue where it's systemic."
Scott told him, "I'm saying that there is racism, but it's not the system."
The pair went back and forth on education, redlining -- referring to discrimination in financial loans -- and inequities in wealth before Scott was ushered away by his staff.
After the conversation, Wimberly told ABC News he came that day open to voting for Scott, but after their interaction he and his wife wouldn't cast a ballot for him "at this time."
The disconnect illustrates a challenge Scott, and more broadly the Republican Party, has in making significant inroads with Black voters. In the last presidential election, 87% of Black voters backed Democrat Joe Biden, according to ABC News' exit polling.
Nadia Brown, a political scientist and professor at Georgetown University argued that Scott's messaging on race is most likely not directed at Black voters at all.
Instead, the senator, who has struggled so far to gain traction in the polls, is pitching himself as a non-white candidate who agrees with the issues that motivates the GOP base, Brown said.
The vast majority of Republican primary voters (92%) were white in 2020, the last presidential election year, according to a 538 analysis.
"What Tim Scott and those of his ilk are doing, they're trying to play on these emotional push pins that most African Americans don't see. It's not landing for them," Brown said. "I think that is a call out to other conservatives, particularly white conservatives, who want to say, 'I have a Black senator,' or, 'I feel comfortable voting for a Black candidate.'"
In rare moments, Scott has cited his race to break from others in the Republican primary field.
In July, he criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for supporting a change to the state's standards that directed educators to teach middle school students enslaved people "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
Scott suggested to reporters that DeSantis should rethink his position. "What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating," he said.
(DeSantis has defended the standards,telling ABC News' Linsey Davisin September: "It was not saying that slavery benefited. It was saying that these folks were resourceful.")
Though the audience for his Chicago speech was predominantly Black, the crowds at Scott's typical campaign stops are overwhelmingly white. At those events, Scott often declares that he will "speak like a pastor," in the famous tradition of Black clergy.
Leah Wright Rigueur, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of "The Loneliness of the Black Republican," analyzed how Scott presents himself in the primary field.
"Because Tim Scott doesn't have certain markers of what the Republican base wants in a candidate, he's not white and he's not married, he plays up on other things: He plays up certain tropes about Black people and he leans into this kind of religious identity that I think really brings out a comfort for white audiences," Wright Rigueur said.
"[Scott] has to talk about race, but he has to do it in a way that doesn't alienate the main players in the party, and that's extremely hard to do given that the standard line on race in the party right now is that 'we don't have a problem and in fact it's other people who are the real racists,'" Wright Rigueur told ABC News.
In response to Scott's speech at the Chicago church, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., who is Black and represents part of the city in Congress, told ABC News, "He's trying to capitulate and kowtow to an extremist right wing group, and he ought to be ashamed of himself."
When criticized for his stance on race, Scott responds with an oft-repeated refrain placing the blame on the political left for, he argues, trying to silence another view.
"I've been called a prop, a token, the N-word and more ugly names than I can share," Scott said in a recent fundraising appeal.
Other Black conservatives agree with Scott's sentiments.
"It's quite obvious what America's past has been, but there's nobody alive today that could sit up and say, 'Well, I didn't develop into my full potential because I wasn't given an opportunity,'" said Raynard Jackson, a Republican political consultant, who is Black. "I think [Scott] hit all the right notes in the right key."
William Oden, chairman of the Sumter, South Carolina, Republican Party, who is also Black, voted for Scott in his Senate bid and loves Scott's "optimistic message."
"His message dispels the rumor that people talk about our country being racist," Oden said.
Although Scott had told ABC News that his team discussed giving his Chicago church speech "for a very long time," he delivered it amid signs that his campaign is faltering.
A super PAC supporting Scott announced it would pull fall ads from TV and he's still polling in the single digits nationally as well as in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina,according to 538's average. He only just managed to qualify for the third Republican primary debate, set for Wednesday.
Before Scott's Chicago speech, his team held a call to announce a plan to shift resources from New Hampshire and increase staffing in Iowa so that they were equipped to go "all in." Campaign manager Jennifer DeCasper also joined him in the city, in a rare appearance to signal what the campaign saw as a major moment.
DeCasper is the only Black woman at the helm of a Republican presidential campaign this cycle and some point to the diversity within Scott's staff as an illustration of his commitment to communities of color.
"Tim doesn't just believe in diversity. He is diverse," said Jackson, the consultant. "If you go to his office, it's nothing but the definition of diversity, and it's not forced or contrived diversity. That's just who he is."
Wright Riguer, the history professor, said that DeCasper is an important reflection of how Scott is approaching the issue.
"Given that there was a Black woman who is essentially guiding his larger political future, that is really important for how he is thinking and talking about race right now," she said.
Scott’s campaign declined to comment for this article.
His recent remarks at the University of Mississippi are perhaps most emblematic of how he will continue to address the topic of race in a party that de-emphasizes identity.
"I don't want to be the Black conservative. I don't want to be the Black southerner," he said in late October. "I want to be Tim Scott, who happens to be Black."
