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In
Case
You
Missed
It
–
Last
Friday,
POLITICO
released
a
long
profile
on
U.S.
Senator
Tim
Scott
(R-SC),
touching
on
the
issues
of
opportunity,
race
and
more.
Some
excerpts
are
below,
and
you
can
read
the
full
piece
here.
EXCERPTS:
“God
made
me
black
on
purpose.
For
a
specific
reason.
It
has
helped
me
to
help
others
who
have
been
locked
out
of
opportunity
in
many
ways,”
Scott
tells
me
over
lunch
at
a
Subway
sandwich
shop
near
his
home,
after
the
barber
visit
and
a
game
of
pickup
basketball.
“I
am
not
pretending
that
this
characteristic,
this
Earth
suit
that
I’m
in”—he
pinches
the
skin
of
his
arm—“isn’t
being
evaluated.
It
requires
a
response,
or
a
reaction,
to
the
situations
at
my
level
of
government.
I
am
fully
aware
of
that.
I
just
don’t
want
to
play
a
game
with
it.”
“Scott
did
not
fall
into
the
drug
trade
like
two
neighborhood
friends
who
were
shot
and
killed.
But
he
rebelled
in
other
ways.
The
future
senator
flunked
his
freshman
year
of
high
school,
failing
English,
world
geography,
civics
and
Spanish.
His
options:
repeat
the
grade
or
take
summer
school
to
pass
the
courses.
Scott’s
mother
told
him
he
was
going
to
summer
school—and
finding
work
to
pay
the
$265
fee
himself.
Failing
the
9th
grade
was
the
first
of
several
inflection
points
in
Scott’s
young
life.
“She
was
working
all
the
hours
in
the
world
to
keep
us
off
of
welfare,”
Scott
recalls,
“and
I
just
knew
I
was
blowing
it.”
“Of
course,
Scott
heard
the
whispers—and
in
some
quarters,
the
grumbling—about
his
appointment
being
an
affirmative
action
hire.
It
made
him
all
the
more
determined
not
to
give
them
ammunition.
In
the
absence
of
words,
Scott
tried
to
lead
with
actions,
assembling
one
of
the
most
diverse
offices
on
Capitol
Hill,
led
by
his
black,
single-mother
chief
of
staff.
He
also
poured
time
and
resources
into
mentoring
programs
in
distressed
communities
back
home.”
“When
Trump
asked
what
he
could
do
to
help
the
situation,
the
senator
pitched
his
“Opportunity
Zones”
idea,
and
the
president
instantly
offered
his
support.
That
language,
Scott
tells
me,
probably
would
not
have
become
law
without
the
administration’s
backing.”
Scott
likes
to
use
the
phrase
“from
cotton
to
Congress,”
describing
how
his
grandfather,
a
product
of
the
Jim
Crow
South,
lived
long
enough
to
see
his
grandson
elected
to
federal
office.
“I
watched
him
eulogize
his
grandfather,
and
to
see
the
tears
running
down
his
face—there
was
a
lot
of
sacrifice,
tribulation,
suffering
that
happened
in
his
family,”
says
Al
Jenkins,
a
longtime
friend
who
runs
Scott’s
community
outreach
and
mentoring
programs
in
the
Charleston
region.
“He’s
there
on
the
shoulders
of
all
of
those
generations
of
Scotts
that
sacrificed
today
so
that
maybe
somebody
will
be
able
to
break
through
tomorrow.
And
he
carries
that
with
him
every
day.
He
is
constantly
reminded,
‘You
are
the
one.
You
are
the
breakthrough.’”
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