Giuliani: Black Violence Is Reason For White Cops In Ferguson

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Sunday raised eye­brows when he said he was “dis­ap­point­ed” that the focus in Ferguson, Missouri, is on the major­i­ty of the police force being white, rather than vio­lence between African-Americans.

The con­ver­sa­tion erupt­ed when “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd began dis­cussing the dis­pro­por­tion of white police forces to the com­mu­ni­ties they serve in areas across the U.S. aside from Ferguson, includ­ing Newark, New Jersey and El Paso, Texas. ”All of those places could become future Fergusons,” Todd said. 

Giuliani quick­ly piv­ot­ed the con­ver­sa­tion, argu­ing “the fact is, I find it very dis­ap­point­ing that you’re not dis­cussing the fact that 93% of blacks in America are killed by oth­er blacks. We’re talk­ing about the excep­tion here.”

Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson chimed in, say­ing “First of all, most black peo­ple who com­mit crimes against oth­er black peo­ple go to jail. Number two, they are not sworn by the police depart­ment as an agent of the state to uphold the law. So in both cas­es, that’s a false equiv­a­len­cy that the may­or has drawn, which has exac­er­bat­ed ten­sions deeply embed­ded in American culture.”

“Black peo­ple who kill black peo­ple go to jail. White peo­ple who are police­men who kill black peo­ple do not go to jail,” Dyson con­tin­ued. “If a jury can indict a ham sand­wich, why is it tak­ing so long?”

Giuliani respond­ed, say­ing “it’s hard­ly insignif­i­cant, it is the rea­son for the heavy pol­i­cy pres­ence in the black com­mu­ni­ty.” Dyson: “Not at all, not at all.”

“What about the poor black child that is killed by anoth­er black child? Why aren’t you protest­ing that?” Giuliani asked. “Those peo­ple go to jail!” Dyson fired back. http://​www​.msnbc​.com/​m​s​n​b​c​/​r​u​d​y​-​g​i​u​l​i​a​n​i​-​f​o​r​m​e​r​-​m​a​y​o​r​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​r​e​a​s​o​n​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​c​o​p​s​-​f​e​r​g​u​s​o​n​?​C​I​D​=​S​M​_FB