On Monday’s “MSNBC Live,” Morgan State University Assistant Professor Dr. Lawrence Brown declared, “American policing was founded on slave patrols. This system of policing has been always exacting disproportionate violence against African-Americans, throughout the history of this country.”
Brown said, “[T]his system that we have doesn’t work for African-Americans. There’s disproportionality in arrests and sentencing for African-Americans, and then when cops are shooting our children, when they’re shooting our people, cops are not punished, disproportionately.”
After host Tamron Hall mentioned that the judge who made the ruling acquitting one of the officers in the death of Freddie Gray was African-American, Brown responded by criticizing the way the trial was conducted, before adding, “You mentioned that there was an African-American judge. We have a black mayor. We had a black policeman. But American policing was founded on slave patrols. This system of policing has been always exacting disproportionate violence against African-Americans, throughout the history of this country.”
He added, when asked about whether he was arguing that the verdict was part of a “systemic conspiracy that also involves African-American leaders of your city,” “It is the way the system is designed.” He later added that “this system is not designed to work with, or work for the interests of people living in disinvested, red line black communities.”
Brown further stated, “[I]t’s about policing culture, but it’s also about the way black victims are viewed in our society. we dehumanize them. actually, even in the media we saw here that it was –many journalists here referred to as the Freddie Gray trials, as if Freddie Gray was on trial.”
(h/t Daily Caller)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.