Michael Eric Dyson: Police ‘Authority Has Spilled Over Into Terrorizing’ African-Americans

Sunday, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while commenting on the recent fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson said police “authority has spilled over into terrorizing impulses and impacts among African-American culture, and I wanted to talk about the vulnerability we feel.”

Dyson said “Well, my point is that, look, and I understand, white brothers and sisters who wrote me back, hey, you can’t characterize all of us. Look, it’s a trope, it’s an approach, it’s an understanding. But imagine what we feel when we’re addressed as black America. I was pleading, really, with white brothers and sisters to understand the difficulty, the circumstances that we confront. The extraordinary assault upon black life, the repudiation of any sense of civility when it comes to the interactions between police forces, which most African-American people regard with respect and authority, but whose authority has spilled over into terrorizing impulses and impacts upon African-American culture, and I wanted to talk about the vulnerability we feel. Even when you were interviewing Chief Bratton, a remarkable man to be sure, but he wanted to draw a false equivalence talking to his son, and Jeh Johnson speaking to his son. Jeh Johnson, unfortunately, hesitant to weigh in, and I understand. Chief Bratton more than happy to do so. There’s not an equivalence between Chief Bratton speaking to his son, because his son is not most likely to be brutalized by police authority, or the misapplication of the law to vulnerable populations. And I wanted to express myself to that very America that I teach every day at Georgetown University.”

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