Rep. Cori Bush says America is ‘racist AF,’ backs defunding St. Louis police
Bush's "racist AF" comment comes days after South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott proclaimed "America is not a racist country."
Congresswoman Cori Bush called American “racist AF” in a tweet Sunday afternoon.
“Our communities wouldn’t have needed to spark a national movement to save Black lives if America weren’t racist AF,” Bush wrote.
Bush represents the 1st congressional district of Missouri, which includes all of St. Louis and a large part of the city’s northern suburbs.
The Democrat recently praised a historic vote to defund the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Mayor Tishaura Jones will cut $4 million from the department’s budget and eliminate 98 currently vacant officer positions.
The $4 million cut from the $171 million police budget will be used to fund affordable housing, homeless services, victims’ support programs and civil rights enforcement.
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In a statement, Bush praised the decision, saying, “For decades, our city funneled more and more money into our police department under the guise of public safety, while massively underinvesting in the resources that will truly keep our communities safe. Previous administrations spent more per capita on policing than all comparable cities, building a police force that is larger than that of any city comparable to St. Louis.”
“But even as more and more money has gone into policing,” she continued, “the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department continues to be the deadliest police force in the nation, year after year — all while violence in our communities continues to skyrocket.”
Bush’s “racist AF” comment comes days after South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott proclaimed that “America is not a racist country” in his party’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s recent remarks to a joint session of Congress.
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The remarks have been hotly debated since.
Vice President Kamala Harris responded that America is not a racist country, but said “we also do have to speak the truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police has experienced several scandals in the past year. Two officers were charged with rape, while another died just this past weekend from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being accused of physically assaulting a female officer on duty.
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