Monday on CSPAN’s coverage of a news conference where Democrats unveiled policing reform legislation, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) should “be ashamed of himself” for his op-ed in The New York Times that called for the U.S. military to stop rioting in American cities in response to the death of George Floyd.
Clyburn said, “Many of you have heard me go to Tocqueville’s description of what makes this country great. And he wrote in his two-volume book, ‘Democracy in America,’ that America is not great because it is more enlightened than any other nation, but rather because it has always been able to repair its faults. That’s what makes this country great. And most right-thinking Americans know that the greatness of this country is at stake.”
He continued, “We have unveiled for whatever reason, some faults that need to be repaired, faults in the health care system, faults in our judicial system. So let me say to Mr. Cotton pick up any history book of America. I would ask him to please just read the history of Isaac Woodard, a black man who came home from World War II on the bus from Fort Gordon, Georgia, trying to get to South Carolina. He was stopped, taken off a bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, by a deputy sheriff. He was in his uniform. And that deputy sheriff took his billy stick and punched his eyes out. Is that institutional in law enforcement? That has been the foundation upon which law enforcement in many parts of this country has operated.”
He added, “Cotton is from Arkansas. He ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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