Van Jones Suggests Black Police Who Killed Tyre Nichols ‘Driven by Racism,’ Claims Only Race of Victim — Not Cop — Relevant
Breitbart
By JOSHUA KLEIN31 Jan 2023
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/31/van-jones-suggests-black-police-who-killed-tyre-nichols-driven-racism-claims-only-race-victim-not-cop-relevant/
The black police officers who killed Tyre Nichols may
have been “driven by racism,” according to CNN contributor Van Jones, who charged that
black people “are not immune to anti-Black messages,” and that “it is the race
of the victim who is brutalized — not the race of the violent
cop — that is most relevant in determining whether racial bias is a factor in
police violence.”
The Friday CNN op-ed titled “The
police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black. But they might still have been
driven by racism,” begins with the CNN political commentator and former Obama
administration official recalling his arrest during the Los Angeles riots
following the beating of Rodney King by four policemen in 1992.
“Three decades ago, when four White Los Angeles police
officers were videotaped beating Rodney King, the public outcry was heard
around the world,” Jones writes.
“In fact, I got arrested for the first time in my life
during protests that followed,” he added.
After what he termed a “defining moment for the nation
and the world,” Jones claims he decided to dedicate his career as a lawyer to
help “sue rogue cops, close prisons and reform the criminal justice
system.”
He then cited Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis who
recently compared the beating of King with the death of Nichols, saying: “I was
in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident, and it’s very much aligned
with that same type of behavior. I would say it’s about the same, if not worse.”
Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, died on
January 10, three days after Memphis police officers stopped him for “reckless
driving.”
Video footage released on Friday appears to show Nichols
being punched, kicked in the face, struck with a baton, and sprayed with an
irritant.
Jones describes Nichols as a “good guy,” before stating
that “learning that your child’s life was senselessly stolen from him is every
Black parent’s nightmare.”
He also noted that “surprisingly to many people,” the
five former Memphis police officers, charged with second-degree murder and
other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, “were also Black.”
“How do we explain Nichols’ horrific killing, allegedly
at the hands of police who looked like him?” Jones asks.
Stating that American society “has often focused on the
race of the officers — so often White — as a factor in their deplorable acts of
violence,” the CNN anchor argues that “the narrative ‘White cop kills unarmed
Black man’ should never have been the sole lens through which we attempted to
understand police abuse and misconduct.”
“It’s time to move to a more nuanced discussion of the
way police violence endangers Black lives,” he writes.
According to Jones, black people are not immune to the
“pernicious effects” of anti-black racism.
“Society’s message that Black people are inferior,
unworthy and dangerous is pervasive,” he writes. “Over many decades, numerous
experiments have shown that these ideas can infiltrate Black minds as well as
White.”
“Self-hatred is a real thing,” he adds.
For example, Jones claims, a black store owner “might
regard customers of his same race with suspicion, while treating his White
patrons with deference.”
“Black people can harbor anti-Black sentiments and can
act on those feelings in harmful ways,” he writes.
Regarding law enforcement, Jones insists black officers
“are often socialized in police departments that view certain neighborhoods as
war zones.”
“In those departments, few officers get disciplined for
dishing out ‘street justice’ in certain precincts — often populated by Black,
brown or low-income people — where there is a tacit understanding that the
‘rulebook’ simply doesn’t apply,” he claims.
“Cops of all colors, including Black police officers,
internalize those messages — and sometimes act on them,” he adds.
He then cites the infamous rap
protest anthem “F*** tha Police” — where rapper Ice Cube
describes assault by black police as “showing out for the white cop” — to prove
that “the phenomenon of brutal Black cops singling out young Black men for
abuse [in Black neighborhoods] is nothing new.”
Though “race does matter” when it comes to police
violence, Jones asserts it is not the way readers think.
At the end of the day, it is the race of the victim who
is brutalized — not the race of the violent cop — that is most relevant in
determining whether racial bias is a factor in police violence. It’s hard to
imagine five cops of any color beating a White person to death under similar
circumstances. And it is almost impossible to imagine five Black cops
giving a White arrestee the kind of beat-down that Nichols allegedly received.
Jones concludes that “racial animus can still be a
factor, even when the perpetrators are all Black,” charging that “people often
oppress people who look just like them.”
“The vast majority of human rights abuses are committed
by people who look exactly like the people they are abusing,” he adds.
He suggests that “stricter oversight and swifter
punishment” are the keys to “reducing the incidence of police violence,”
claiming that without them “we’ll continue to see stomach-churning acts of
police violence against Black men — by cops of every color.”
In response, Valuetainment’s Patrick Bet-David blasted
CNN over the piece.
“Any opportunity @cnn gets to divide, it jumps on it,” he
wrote.
“It’s a shame. Why not try to unify for once?” he added.
Speaking on CNN about his remarks in the essay, Jones
responded to critics, admitting “it does seem weird when we’re saying there’s a
racial dimension here even though the police are African-American,” but
ultimately reiterating he continues to believe racial bias played a role in the
officers’ conduct.
Previously, Jones has called the
policing “methodology” used in the United States “dumb and dangerous and
discriminatory.”
He also described former
President Donald Trump’s victory during the 2016 presidential elections as “a
whitelash against a black president, in part.”
Connecting the Dots:
Van
Jones was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is
a trustee at Demos and a commentator for CNN.
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Center for
American Progress.
George Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open
Society Foundations, was a supporter for the Center for American
Progress and the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open
Society.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was
a funder for the Center for American Progress, Demos and
the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Walter Isaacson
is the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank) and
was the chairman & CEO for CNN.
Hisashi Owada was
a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank) and is a
director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Ted
Turner is a co-chairman for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think
tank) and is the founder of CNN.
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank) was a
funder for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Jessica
Tuchman Mathews is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative
(think tank) and was the president of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (think tank).
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank), the Center for
American Progress and Demos.
George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open
Society and a supporter for the Center for American Progress.
Van
Jones was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is
a trustee at Demos and a commentator for CNN.
Resources: Past
Research
Project Veritas
Investigation: CNN’s Van Jones Appears to Call Russia Controversy a ‘Big
Nothing Burger’ (Past Research on Van Jones)
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2017
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2017/06/project-veritas-investigation-cnns-van.html
Charleston: CNN’s Sick
Pattern of Using the Dead as Political Weapons Against the Right (Past Research on CNN)
SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015
