Overnight on Wednesday, a troubling and racist Twitter trend bulled to headlines. Twitter users were retweeting a post about GOP Sen. Tim Scott after stating a rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s speech yesterday. Unfortunately, the tweet remained visible for hours after it was made, allowing for it to go viral. What was meant by calling Scott “Uncle Tim,” and why did it take so long for Twitter to remove it?

The “Uncle Tom” racial slur stems from a novel titled “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe back in 1852. The main character (Uncle Tom) is a slave. Calling Scott “Uncle Tim,” comparing him to an African American slave, received backlash because of its apparent racism. There are a lot of times when Republicans will state an unfortunate racist remark and receive more backlash from the Democrats. Those same Democrats need to hold the party accountable as well.

Why has the left-wing media remained silent on this issue? It’s not acceptable for anyone on either side of the political spectrum to make racist comments. The fact that Democrats did not call this out sooner is a blatant double standard. If racism is ever going to be eradicated, there needs to be full support from both sides. And the act of being a bystander in this instance just because of Scott’s political identification says a lot about not only the drastic extent to which Americans are divided but also the hypocrisy of Democrats.

Twitter is also in the hot seat because they waited so long to take down the post and block people from retweeting it. After major blow from the right, one of Twitter’s spokespeople came out to condemn the tweet, basically saying what should have been said when the tweet was first posted — that it is against Twitter’s community guidelines and Twitter will now allow it.

Coming from a liberal standpoint, if you’re going to call out this behavior on one side, then you have to call it out on the other. Racism will not and should not be tolerated from either side of the political spectrum. So far, there have not been any comments from the NAACP or Black Lives Matter on this matter. This is unfortunate because, as both organizations are against racism, it seems they would have condemned these remarks, too. Both are well-respected and amazing organizations, so it is unexpected to see them allowing this to be a bipartisan issue. Hopefully in the future, people from both parties will hold each other accountable.