Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that the arrest of Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon (D) on Thursday after she knocked on Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) statehouse office door showed “systemic racism” in policing when compared to the treatment of the Capitol Hill rioters and Michigan protesters.
Jeffries said, “This is a great county. We have come a long way. We still have a long way to go. But the reality is systemic racism has been in the soil of this country for 401 years, and it manifests itself in different ways. In terms of differential law enforcement treatment, we see how an African American lawmaker is treated on the Capitol grounds of Georgia. And then you actually have an angry mob of whites show up uninvited to the Capitol of Michigan several months ago, armed to the tee, acting in a hostile fashion, and they were given the red carpet treatment. I don’t believe a single one of them was actually handcuffed and escorted off the Michigan state Capitol grounds, let alone getting into what took place on January 6th, which says that this type of differential behavior is embedded in our culture, and that’s why we need to act decisively to crush it.”
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