Heidi Alexander: “I want to thank the Senator from Alaska for her eloquent remarks, and I am glad I was here to have a chance to listen to…”

“I want to thank the Senator from Alaska for her eloquent remarks, and I am glad I was here to have a chance to listen to them, both on equal rights, really, for all Americans. It is not possible for us to speak on any subject today without recognizing what is going on in the country. A couple of comments that come to my mind as I think what happened as a result of the incident with George Floyd in Minneapolis were, first, the comment of the leader of the peaceful protest in Nashville. There were more than 1,000 there. She said, the next day, that she was disappointed by the rioters and looters because they dishonored the memory of George Floyd and dishonored the peaceful protest against racial discrimination. I thought she said that well and expressed the feeling of most Tennesseans. The other comment I thought about was that of our colleague Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is one of three African-American Members of the U.S. Senate. He told us a couple of years ago in a private Bible study--and I asked him later if I could mention it--that he was stopped 7 times--an African-American man--in his hometown, Charleston, SC, for being a Black man in the wrong place, even while he was the vice mayor of his hometown. I asked him about that again this week. He said: Yes, it happened again last month. I think most of us don't know that. We don't think about that--those of us who aren't African American, aren't Black.…”