MSNBC analyst Jason Johnson said potential violent protests in reaction to the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case charging former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment earlier would be a “whole bunch of interlopers and white nationalists and three-percenters and terrorists battling it out in the street.”
Johnson said, “I’m not surprised. You know, every time this happens, and this has happened a lot, I always tell myself before I go on the air, I’m not going to get pissed or do any sort of performative tears or rage or anything like that. And yet today, I can’t help it. I’m so disgusted by this. I’m so disgusted by Daniel Cameron’s performance. I am so sick and tired of black people going on the air and performing for violence and white supremacy and state-sponsored violence against black people and claiming their mamas, and because of black people, they care about it. This woman got shot in her house! When she was asleep! ”
He continued, “If cops busting into my house right now and shot me on the air, what Daniel Cameron basically told America is that that would be legal. If they thought that there was something wrong, I could be shot in broad daylight, on national television, in my house, because the cops can break in and shoot whoever they want if they’re concerned. That is why people are upset. That is why protesters are mad at the media because they’re tired of these discussions being teased out in ways that give justifications for nothing other than state-sponsored white supremacy and killing of black people. It is so infuriating and so maddening.”
Johnson added, “I empathize with the people who are there in pain. I empathize with the protesters who are going to be home by 9:00. That’s the thing! The Black Lives Matter protesters, they’re going to take their signs, and they’re going to go home. And you’re going to have a whole bunch of interlopers and white nationalists and 3 Percenters and terrorists battling it out in the street like the ‘No Church in the Wild’ video, and that’s how the Black Lives Matter protesters will get depicted. I want to thank you for being so good in your opening by saying, hey, can we distinguish between the people wearing black and the folks protesting. Can we distinguish between the white nationalists walking around with guns and the people there who are centering Breonna Taylor? Because that’s where the frustration comes from, not that another life was snuffed out, but that a lot of people aren’t doing what you’re doing, which is distinguishing between those who are concerned about our criminal justice system and the routine murder of black people and those who want to co-op the experience for their own political joys.”
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