Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said he feared police now more than he did growing up in the segregated South.
Clyburn said, “I would simply say, as I have always said, nobody is going to defund the police. We can restructure the police forces, restructure, reimagine policing. That is what we are going to do. The fact of the matter is, the police have a role to play. What we have got to do is make sure that their role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in.
He continued, “I didn’t grow up in fear of police, even in a segregated environment. We never feared the police. But, all of a sudden now, I do fear the police. The young blacks fear the police. Why? Because we have built-in a system that’s responding, once again, to Brown v. Board of Education and everything that comes with it. When I was growing up, we didn’t have black police.”
He added, “The fact of the matter is, this is a structure that has been developed that we have got to deconstruct. So, I wouldn’t say defund — deconstruct our policing.”
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