WATCH: Tom Cotton Blisters Biden DOJ Nominee For Saying All Americans Have ‘Racial Biases’

 

This week, Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton blistered Vanita Gupta, President Biden’s nominee for associate attorney general, for her past comments in which she accused all Americans of harboring “implicit bias” and “racial bias.”

Cotton asked Gupta to recall, “Last summer, nine months ago, you were in front of this committee and Senator Cornyn said, ‘Do you believe that all Americans are racist?’ You replied, ‘Yes, I think that we all have implicit biases and racial biases. Yes, I do.’ So, Ms. Gupta, I ask you, against which races do you harbor racial bias?”“Senator Cotton, I do not — the yes was to say that all of us have implicit bias,” Gupta answered. “This was an exchange also that Judge Garland had with Senator Kennedy during his hearing. I believe that we all have implicit bias. It doesn’t mean that we are harboring any racism at all; these are unconscious assumptions and stereotypes that can get made. And I remember that summer in the exchange with Senator Cornyn that we were discussing systemic racism and implicit bias, and my response was to say that all of us have implicit bias.”

“Well, to be precise, you said we all have implicit biases and racial biases,” Cotton replied. “That’s all. Every single American you accused of implicit bias and racial bias. So, I’m asking you again, against which races do you harbor racial bias?”

“I am quite aware that I know that I hold stereotypes that I have to manage,” Gupta said. “I’m a product of my culture. I’m a product — it’s part of the human condition, and I believe that one of the reasons, I believe that all of us are able to manage implicit bias, but only if we can acknowledge our own, and I am not above anyone else in that matter. I think implicit bias is something that is part of the shared human condition.”Later, Cotton pressed, “You also said in response to a question about institutional racism, ‘There is not an institution in this country that isn’t suffering from institutional racism.’ There is not an institution in this country.”

Cotton then fired, “Ms. Gupta, does the Biden White House suffer from institutional racism?”

Gupta evaded answering, saying, “Senator, given the history of this country, of slavery and the long period of Jim Crow, and the ongoing scourge of racial discrimination, I think that it is — remains very much a live problem in America today. And that the effort to address racial discrimination in all of its forms — discrimination of any sorts — is something that all of us have to work at in the institutions we are a part of. And one of the reasons why I will be honored to return to the Justice Department, if confirmed, is that the Justice Department was actually founded on this objective of ensuring equal justice before the law. And the laws that Congress has enacted, through the sacrifice and loss of life of black Americans and Americans writ large, that is a, kind of, core function of the Justice Department is to enforce our federal civil rights laws and to fight discrimination where it happens for all Americans.”

“I’ll just have the record reflect, I asked you simply, ‘Does the Biden White House suffer from institutional racism?’ and you didn’t want to respond,” Cotton snapped. “My time is up here. I’ll just say that I don’t think you harbor racial bias towards any racial group or that you believe the Biden White House suffers from institutional racism, but when you throw around allegations that every single American suffers from racial bias and every single institution suffers from institutional racism, you open yourself up to these kinds of questions by condemning your fellow Americans without individualized evidence of their beliefs, their words, or their deeds. I think these statements were beyond the pale. I don’t think really anybody truly believes them, nor should they be believed because they are so preposterous.”


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