Spike Lee: When Cases Like Eric Garner Surface, Americans ‘Tend to Turn Away’

‘we are in a very messy time here in America when it comes to race’

REID: "Today was the first day in this interview I just realized you were not born in Brooklyn." 
LEE: "I was born in Atlanta, Ga." 
REID: "You're from Atlanta, Ga., yeah. But do people recognize that the fact that this has not changed and still leading up to 25 years, what is wrong with us as a society that people are surprised when something happens like that in an Eric Garner case?"
LEE: "I think, number one, that we tend to turn our head away. And Commissioner Bratton is the one who outlawed the chokehold by NYPD 27 years ago and it still reared its ugly head. And the choke has been used not only on Eric Garner, but we just had the video tape of it. So we are in a very messy time here in America when it comes to race. But I've always felt that it is right under the surface and it takes like an O.J. Or whatever it is, and then it just explodes that we have townhall, meeting on NBC. Let's have a townhall talk about race and then it goes down and comes back up again and nothing is really ever, uh --" 
REID: "Resolved." 
LEE: "Resolved."

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