On PBS’s weekly journalist roundtable show Washington Week on February 3, National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday host Ayesha Rascoe and NBC News reporter Ryan Nobles (formerly at CNN) discussed the brutal, fatal attack on Tyre Nichols, expanding from the killing to explore bizarre explanations for the attack by the five black police officers, including “white supremacy,” “food insecurity,” and even bringing up the proposed Advanced Placement high school course on African-American history that was opposed as too ideological by the Ron DeSantis administration in Florida.
Host Yamiche Alcindor joined her guests in dismissing Republican concerns about federal law enforcement misconduct, while suggesting Democrats were the only party with the moral authority to speak on the subject.
Alcindor: You talk about sort of this stalemate. Ryan, Jim Jordan surprised me because he said the police misconduct is a form of the weaponization of the government, which I was like, I had to do a double take. But he also said in the same breath he doesn’t think he cannot think of any law that would stop what happens to Tyre Nichols. So what are you hearing from Republicans, are they echoing Jim Jordan?
Ryan Nobles, NBC News: Define police misconduct, Yamiche. For a Republican like Jim Jordan, it would be the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago -- raiding Mar-a-Lago to find classified documents that were inappropriately taken. It would be Capitol Police officers roughing up protesters, as they’re called, as they were storming the Capitol illegally. That’s part of the problem that we have in Washington that Michael points to, people are talking past each other. Even these things we think would be kind of basic knowledge that we all agree upon, a problem like police brutality or law enforcement run amok, different Americans have different definitions for those. And particularly in the House of Representatives, those members are speaking specifically only to those constituencies….
An NPR host became the latest figure on public television to ludicrously insist that the spectacle of black police officers beating to death a black citizen was in fact an act “rooted in white supremacy.”
Ayesha Roscoe: Well I mean look we have to use the word, we have to talk about -- even though these were black police officers, there is an idea of policing that is rooted in white supremacy. Like that is something that people make the argument over and over again and that when you have black bodies, they are not, that black people are not valued enough. So if you are in a position of authority, you may feel like you can get away with treating this person like they are not human, versus the way you would treat somebody who’s white and innocent. And that’s just a fact. And we have to really deal with that if we are going to deal with the issues of police brutality in this country.
Next, Ryan Nobles of NBC News, talking like a parody of liberalism, suggested ways to prevent atrocities like Memphis, including….“funding food programs”?:
Nobles: And that gets back to not just funding police reform, it talks about funding education it talks about funding food programs to eliminate things like food insecurity and poverty. This is all part of the systemic problems that leads to the situation that we saw in Memphis that lawmakers just don’t want to have a serious conversation about.
Alcindor: We only have ten seconds left, even as Ryan talks about education, we think about the fact that the AP African-American studies is being watered down, so it’s a tough place to be.
Roscoe: It’s a tough place to be. And I think Ryan was exactly right, we are talking past each other. And even when it comes to what our history is and what we want to learn, we are not talking the same language.
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A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
PBS Washington Week
February 3, 2023
8:22:30 p.m. Eastern
Yamiche Alcindor: You talk about sort of this stalemate. Ryan, Jim Jordan surprised me because he said the police misconduct is a form of the weaponization of the government, which I was like, I had to do a double take. But he also said in the same breath he doesn’t think he cannot think of any law that would stop what happens to Tyre Nichols. So what are you hearing from Republicans, are they echoing Jim Jordan?
Ryan Nobles, NBC News: Define police misconduct, Yamiche. For a Republican like Jim Jordan, it would be the FBI raiding Mar-a-lago -- raiding Mar-a-lago to find classified documents that were inappropriately taken. It would be Capitol Police officers roughing up protesters, as they’re called, as they were storming the Capitol illegally. That’s part of the problem that we have in Washington that Michael points to, people are talking past each other. Even these things we think would be kind of basic knowledge that we all agree upon, a problem like police brutality or law enforcement run amok, different Americans have different definitions for those. And particularly in the House of Representatives, those members are speaking specifically only to those constituencies….
….
Alcindor: And Ayesha, I want to come back to this idea that I’ve been talking about, can you even legislate hearts and minds? Of course people even civil-rights leaders say we have to have new laws but there is this lack of humanity people are seeing when they see, frankly what they do see Tyre Nichols being beaten the way he is being beaten, especially as he’s calling out for his mother and the same when George Floyd calledout to his mother.
Ayesha Roscoe, Host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday”: Well I mean look we have to use the word, we have to talk about -- even though these were black police officers, there is an idea of policing that is rooted in white supremacy. Like that is something that people make the argument over and over again and that when you have black bodies, they are not, that black people are not valued enough. So if you are in a position of authority, you may feel like you can get away with treating this person like they are not human, versus the way you would treat somebody who’s white and innocent. And that’s just a fact. And we have to really deal with that if we are going to deal with the issues of police brutality in this country.
Ryan Nobles, NBC News: And that gets back to not just funding police reform, it talks about funding education it talks about funding food programs to eliminate things like food insecurity and poverty. This is all part of the systemic problems that leads to the situation that we saw in Memphis that lawmakers just don’t want to have a serious conversation about.
Alcindor: We only have ten seconds left, even as Ryan talks about education, we think about the fact that the AP African-American studies is being watered down, so it’s a tough place to be.
Roscoe: It’s a tough place to be. And I think Ryan was exactly right, we are talking past each other. And even when it comes to what our history is and what we want to learn, we are not talking the same language.
