Van Jones joined CNN Tonight early Saturday morning to react to the horrible video of Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by five Memphis police officers by trying to inject racial politics into the matter early Saturday morning, claiming “we sometimes forget, unfortunately, African-Americans can also be guilty of hatred and bias and bigotry against other African-Americans.”
Jones had help in this endeavor from host Laura Coates, “Five black officers charged in the killing of an unarmed black man. Now, we often have conversations, Van, about the element of race and the racial dynamic in policing, but I think we all know quite well that when it comes to the power, blue trumps black. The idea of the race of the person who is victimized often more telling than the race of the aggressor. What is your reaction?”
Condemning the “very simplistic notion that says, well, if a white cop is doing something to unarmed black person, then that’s racism,” Jones lamented:
We sometimes forget, unfortunately, African-Americans can also be guilty of hatred and bias and bigotry against other African-Americans. Sometimes you go into a store owned by African American, they’re nice to the white folks and suspicious of you. It’s not that only one group can harbor anti-black bias. It is so pervasive and so the other thing that happens, certain neighborhoods are just considered almost by some police departments, war zones, anything goes over there, just do what you have to do.
He further added, “black officers can pick up on those kinds of cues, those kinds of signals when nobody gets in trouble for acting a certain way in this neighborhood versus in a white neighborhood. Race is an element here. I can't imagine any police officers delivering that kind of brutal beating to a white male U.S. citizen.”
If Jones truly believes that then he simply isn’t looking hard enough. Just because CNN does not have him on the air to talk about cases that run counter to his pre-determined conclusion, doesn’t mean it they never happen.
Jones concluded his thoughts by condemning the “inhumanity” of police, “Can you imagine if you had five black officers doing that? It is very hard to imagine. I think what has happened is, we’ve become accustomed, black and white officers, to a certain amount of inhumanity directed in certain neighborhoods with certain suspects. You saw that play out today.”
As bad as the video was—and it was very bad—it is irresponsible journalism to force facts into a pre-existing narrative and to instill fear in people that all police have something against them.
This segment was sponsored by Babbel.
Here is a transcript for the January 28 show:
CNN Tonight
1/28/2023
12:35 AM ET
LAURA COATES: Five black officers charged in the killing of an unarmed black man. Now, we often have conversations, Van, about the element of race and the racial dynamic in policing, but I think we all know quite well that when it comes to the power, blue trumps black. The idea of the race of the person who is victimized often more telling than the race of the aggressor. What is your reaction?
VAN JONES: Yeah, I think it is really important because there’s this very simplistic notion that says, well, if a white cop is doing something to unarmed black person, then that’s racism, but we sometimes forget, unfortunately, African-Americans can also be guilty of hatred and bias and bigotry against other African-Americans. Sometimes you go into a store owned by African American, they’re nice to the white folks and suspicious of you. It’s not that only one group can harbor anti-black bias. It is so pervasive and so the other thing that happens, certain neighborhoods are just considered almost by some police departments, war zones, anything goes over there, just do what you have to do.
And so black officers can pick up on those kinds of cues, those kinds of signals when nobody gets in trouble for acting a certain way in this neighborhood versus in a white neighborhood. Race is an element here. I can't imagine any police officers delivering that kind of brutal beating to a white male U.S. citizen.
Can you imagine if you had five black officers doing that? It is very hard to imagine. I think what has happened is, we’ve become accustomed, black and white officers, to a certain amount of inhumanity directed in certain neighborhoods with certain suspects. You saw that play out today.
