South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (R) this week defended his remarks that “woke supremacy” is as bad as white supremacy.

“My comments were a sound-bite-length reaction to yet another media figure accusing me of being a token for Republicans,” Scott wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Tuesday, saying he was responding an opinion piece the newspaper published last week calling the senator a “fool” for his comments.

On March 8, Scott made his initial “woke supremacy” comments when firing back at MSNBC host Joy Reid for accusing the GOP of using him as a “patina of diversity”.

In his Tuesday piece, Scott explained that he was not “comparing the long history of racial hate to the very short history of wokeism” and that he is “painfully aware that four centuries of racism, bigotry and killings does not compare to the nascent woke movement.”

“I spoke out,” he wrote, “because I am gravely concerned for our future if we ignore either type of supremacy,” saying both “are rooted in racism or discrimination.”

Being the first Black senator from South Carolina, Scott has served in the upper congressional chamber since 2013. He is joined by only two other Black senators.

The senator then illustrated the racist comments he has endured for being a Black Republican and argued that woke supremacists believe diversity doesn’t matter if it isn’t paired with progressive thinking, to which Scott said, “my ideology does not match that which they prescribe based on my complexion.”

“It is the ‘tolerant’ left’s intolerance for dissent,” Scott added. “It is a progressive conception of diversity that does not include diversity of thought. It is discrimination falsely marketed as inclusion.”

“I am proud to be both a Black man and a Republican,” he also stated. “Because of those aspects of my identity, many critics have ignored things I have actually done,” he continued, going on to list his accomplishments in Congress such as securing funding for historically Black colleges and fighting for school choice, among other things.

“Critics discount these accomplishments for the Black community because it conflicts with the caricature they’ve created of what it means to be Black and to be a Republican,” Scott wrote.

Toward the end of his Washington Post op-ed, the senator painted a picture of an increasingly divided and segregated America, blaming “woke culture”.

Closing out his piece, Scott brought up the late civil-rights icon and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), whom the senator described as “my friend,” and when Lewis asked him to co-chair the march on Selma back in 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

“When I think of my vision for America,” Scott wrote, “I think about standing shoulder to shoulder on that bridge with John and Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, walking forward together.”

Scott then concluded that the United States can let “woke culture” continue to divide the the country, “or we can choose to create equality of opportunity and access to the American Dream for everyone.”

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.