The View co-host Sunny Hostin joined the crowd of liberals angry at rapper Jay-Z for partnering with the NFL as an adviser for its “social justice initiatives,” without Colin Kaepernick’s consent. She was also outraged at Jay-Z’s statement that blacks were “past kneeling,” in protest at police brutality, calling it “ridiculous” “inappropriate” and “insensitive."
After co-host Abby Huntsman defended the rapper, saying they should give him the benefit of the doubt, Hostin complained that Jay-Z handled this the wrong way by not asking for Kaepernick’s permission first. She went on to rant that it was “inappropriate” for Jay-Z to dismiss NFL players kneeling in protest because police brutality was a “leading cause of death” for young black men:
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think the other message that when he said we are past kneeling is inappropriate in the sense because when you think about it, the leading cause of death for young black men, one of the leading causes of death between 2013 and 2018 is police brutality.
JOY BEHAR: That's what he was kneeling for.
HOSTIN: That's what he was kneeling for, so the mere suggestion that we are past kneeling is ridiculous [applause] and I think it was very insensitive for him to say that as the mother of a young black man. So I think what Jay-Z really did, in effect, was provide the NFL cover for their actions of excluding Colin Kaepernick from employment. [applause]
And I didn't like it. I mean, he could have done this with Colin Kaepernick and I think that would have been much more powerful.
Hostin frequently likes to sneak in headlines from dubious liberal studies to bolster her arguments. In this case, she was citing, a recent study out of Rutgers University which claimed that between 2013-2018, police force was the 6th leading cause of death for young black men in their 20s.
It’s hard to know the legitimacy of this study since it was published just a few weeks ago. I could find no conservative academic response to it. However, it was touted, without question, by just about every liberal media outlet (The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, NBC News, etc) so that alone should raise skepticism. The study is at odds with CDC stats from 2017.
Yet even if taken at face value, it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for Hostin’s narrative.
The study stated the top three causes of deaths for young black men between the ages of 25-29 was “accidental death” (which includes drug overdoses), other homicides, and suicide. These deaths vastly outnumbered the amount of people killed in exchanges with the police, however it's much more convenient for Hostin and the media to tout “police brutality” as the biggest problem black men have to face, instead of address those much more difficult issues.
