Harris: I don’t think America is a racist country, but we need to speak truth about history

Vice President Harris on Thursday called for the nation to “speak truth about the history of racism in our country,” after GOP Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) said in the Republican response to President Biden’s joint address to Congress that “America is not a racist country.” 

“First of all, no, I don’t think America is a racist country,” Harris said when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos whether she agreed with Scott’s comment.

“But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country, and its existence today,” she told “Good Morning America.”

“I applaud the president for always having the ability and courage, frankly, to speak the truth about it,” she added.

.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: @VP Kamala Harris responds to GOP Senator’s claim that “America is not a racist country.” https://t.co/sCuo1VsG2n pic.twitter.com/jRkLmRDBpZ

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 29, 2021

Harris noted that intelligence leaders have warned that white supremacist domestic terrorism is a leading threat to U.S. national security. 

“These are issues that we must confront, and it doesn’t help to heal our country, to unify us as a people, to ignore the realities of that,” Harris said. 

“I think the president has been outstanding and a real national leader on the issue of saying let’s confront the realities, and let’s deal with it, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us. And the idea is that we want to unify the country, but not without speaking truth and requiring accountability as appropriate,” she added.

Scott, the only Black Republican senator, on Wednesday said that “people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress, by doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal.”

“It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present,” he continued. 

Biden during his joint address on Wednesday said that the U.S. has “a giant opportunity to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice” and a “real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues American life in many other ways.”