In this case, the tweets didn’t engage Scott’s ideas. They simply evoked the old image of ‘Uncle Tom’ as a personal attack, saying, in effect, he is a traitor to his race. The same charge, the same epithet, is regularly directed at other Black conservatives: Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, the late Walter Williams, and dozens more. These attacks are: Racist smears, hurled in the name of today’s ‘anti-racist’ ideology Personal venom, not serious counter-arguments or objections to any viewpoint Obvious and malicious efforts to suppress divergent political views among African Americans by shaming conservative opinions. And, finally, More evidence, if any is needed, of our degraded public discourse, which is closer to a middle school spit-ball fight than to an Oxford debate