MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude said Tuesday on “Craig Melvin Reports” that there was “a rot at the heart of policing in this country.”
Discussing the killing of Andrew Brown Jr., Melvin said, “We tell our kids, you get pulled over by the cops, say yes, sir, no, sir, you put your hands on the steering wheel. It sounds like, at this point, based on what we know, it sounds like that’s what he did, and he still gets shot in the back of the head. One of the things that strikes me, Eddie, this happens after we learn about the Chauvin verdict. There had been this thinking that this will change law enforcement behavior. People will see that an officer can be convicted of murder and sent away to prison for years. After the verdict, this happens in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It is unfathomable on so many levels. ”
Glaude said, “Yeah. You know, I still think about Dave Henderson’s comment on this network where he talked about you can’t win. If you beg for mercy, George Floyd, you die. If you say that you’re afraid, Lt. Nazario, you’re humiliated. If you comply, Philando Castile, you die. There is a rot at the heart of policing in this country that we have to uproot, and it’s not just simply bad apples. It’s systemic the way in which our communities are policed. There’s a preset position, Craig, of generalized disregard that our lives just simply don’t matter as much as others.”
“And let me be clear, we tell our children what they’re supposed to do when police approach them,” he continued. “But if a police officer has decided on that day, they’re going to treat our child as less than a human being. There’s nothing we could tell them. There’s nothing you and I could tell them that would save their lives. There’s nothing we could do. And so part of what this is all about is getting at the heart of the contradiction that threatens to choke the life out of this democracy. It always has, and it continues to do so.”
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