Michael Eric Dyson Checks Bill Maher for Claiming ‘Lots of Police Have Been Put in Jail’ for Violence Against Black People

‘We want, when the cops show up, not to direct a common ordinary interchange between human beings into something lethal’

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Michael Eric Dyson patiently explained Black anxiety over interactions with police after HBO host Bill Maher claimed that accountability is improving, and that “lots of police have been put in jail” for violence against Black people.

On Friday night’s edition of Real Time with Bill Maher, Professor Dyson and the host were discussing the merits and messaging behind the “Defund the Police” movement, and Dyson tried to explain that while most Black people want protection, they still have well-founded anxiety about the police.

“We want, when the cops show up, not to direct a common ordinary interchange between human beings into something lethal,” Dyson said, citing the examples of Sandra Bland and Walter Scott, and added “The ordinary interactions that many white brothers and sisters can take for granted end up in death for Black people.”

“So yeah, a lot of Black people don’t want the police to be abolished, I just want the fact that police people seem to consistently and repeatedly murder, kill, maim, harm, and destroy Black life with wanton abandonment without being held to account. And when they do, they have qualified immunity to protect them,” Dyson said.

(h/t Mediaite)

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