PBS Host, Top Journalism Dean Agree Black Officers Motivated by White Supremacy
PBS is your destination for finding white supremacy everywhere. Wednesday’s Amanpour & Co. opened with a long interview with Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia University’s Journalism School and a New Yorker staff writer. Cobb also made a PBS Frontline documentary in 2016 on police in Newark, NJ, “Policing the Police.”
Cobb, who leads a school for future journalists, forwarded the wild argument that the five black police officers who killed Tyre Nichols could have been motivated by self-hatred, having internalized “white supremacy.”
Host Christiane Amanpour agreed with the strange notion from Cobb, introduced by Amanpour as “one of America’s foremost writers on race and politics….” and added her own bizarre delineation of “white” white supremacists (as opposed to the black “white supremacists” in Memphis).
A clip from Nichols’ funeral featured ranting from the eulogy performed by race-baiter and current MSNBC host Al Sharpton — because who can better move us toward racial harmony than a racial arsonist like Sharpton?
Amanpour at least brought up to her guest the seeming anomaly of black “white supremacist” officers killing a black citizen: ….there is always so much discussion about the systemic racism that persists in the United States. And yet, the perpetrators of this death were five black police officers. So, people say, oh, well then clearly it’s not about racism.
Amanpour then suggested it’s been going back centuries into the slavery era and made a strange differentiation:
He brought up the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation decision to argue how “white supremacy” could infect blacks as well: “The psychologists pointed to the kind of self-hating dynamic that racism and white supremacy tended to instill on the minds of people who were subjected to it.”
Amanpour brought up her latest bugbear, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis:
Cobb, who falsely condemned DeSantis on MSNBC for not allowing woke history in Florida schools, didn’t bite this time.
At The Atlantic, Thomas Chatterton Williams pointed out the concept of “white supremacy” has become vaguer of late, “denoting invisible structures, latent beliefs, and even innocuous practices, such as punctuality, that supposedly maintain the comparative advantage of white people at the expense of everyone else.” As demonstrated by these two liberals agreeing with each other on public broadcasting.
A transcript is below, click “Expand” to read:
Amanpour & Co.
February 2, 2023
1:30:40 a.m. Eastern Time
AMANPOUR: Tyre Nichols is laid to rest against a backdrop of national unrest. I speak with Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia University’s Journalism School and one of America’s foremost writers on race and politics….
….Welcome to the program everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
There are gray skies in Memphis today as family and mourners come together to remember Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old whose death at the hands of police sparked renewed protest against this brutality all across the United States. National figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris, are gathering together with George Floyd’s brother, Philonise, and Tamika Palmer, mother of Breonna Taylor, victims of the police. Reverend Al Sharpton, who’s delivering the eulogy for Tyree Nichols, is calling for justice.
REVEREND AL SHARPTON, FOUNDER, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: We are going to continue to fight this fight around police brutality and killing. Until we get federal laws changed. What happened to Tyre is a disgrace to this country. There is no other way to describe what has happened in this situation.
AMANPOUR: As for attempts to change that federal law, here’s how “The Washington Post describes the political situation. Police reform talks are back in Congress, but with the hope for a deal. Jelani Cobb is dean of Columbia University’s Journalism School and he is a veteran observer of steps and missteps towards that goal.
Welcome back to the program Jelani Cobb. I want to ask you because it is just so tragically, you know, repetitive. What strikes you about this particular incident and do you think it could finally be a catalyst for real change?
JELANI COBB, DEAN, COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL: I mean, hope spring’s eternal. But the fact is that you have to be very silver minded about this. That there have been you know pushes for reform before, most notably the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act which went further than any of the prior attempts that happened. But still it was stalled by the efforts of police unions to really stop that legislation from being passed. And so, it’s possible but there’s also a very difficult road ahead. Now, if you ask the question of what is different, you know one of the central things here is that this is the first time that people have seen a video, again, to the kind of video that we saw with George Floyd’s death and the aftermath of the defeat of that legislation. And so, it is very clear, that there is a relationship between the video that we saw in May 2020 and the video that we are now seeing again in January 2023.
AMANPOUR: Which is nearly three years on. In fact, the essentials haven’t changed. And what I want to ask you to explain for our international viewers and maybe many across the United States as well, you know, there is always so much discussion about the systemic racism that persists in the United States. And yet, the perpetrators of this death were five black police officers. So, people say, oh, well then clearly it’s not about racism.
COBB: Yes, that’s not necessarily true. Now, you know, it’s difficult to make definitive categorizations of what someone’s mind status. But you know, there’s always been in the long tradition of people making critiques of racism, there’s always been a recognition that racism is not only pervade by white people or white supremacy. It’s not only pervaded by white people. That there are black people who were exposed to these kinds of ideas and adopt the same sort of mindset as a result of them. There are many possible dynamics at play here. You know, the culture of the department, the psychology of the individual officers, the group dynamics of the five people who were abusing him, and a whole array of other things. But the fact that they are all black people involved does not, in and of itself, mean that there is no possible beam of racism accelerating what we saw happen.
AMANPOUR: Let’s just take that one step further and talk about the institutional education and experience. So, you know I have seen your writing and I’ve heard others in the aftermath of this killing, this death. Talk about how these police officers or any police officers, even black police officers are, as you say, brought up in that system that has been created mostly by the white establishment, right? And that it goes all the way back to bounty hunters, you know, finding escape slaves and the like. Tell me a little bit about the history so that people can understand why it is so pernicious and not just. as you say, for white, white supremacists.
COBB: Yes, I mean — you know, like the system of slavery was, in many instances, administered by black overseers. You know, that was not an uncommon dynamic in the United States. You know, just as in many instances, colonialism was administered by the people of the same background of who are being colonized. It’s not impossible for a system to both have representation of people who are being exploited and used those people to further the exploitation, you know, particular communities. And so, you know, if we were just doing a quick survey of this, you know, Martin Luther King talked about the pernicious effects of internalized racism. W. E. B. Du Bois, the great scholar, talked about it in the Brown versus Board of Education case which outlawed segregation. The psychologists pointed to the kind of self-hating dynamic that racism and white supremacy tended to instill on the minds of people who were subjected to it. So, it’s a very long history here. And it’s impossible to understand what happened to Tyre Nichols without taking all of that into account.
AMANPOUR: So now, let’s go forward and see how this can, maybe, be shifted. Some have, in the aftermath of his death, his killing, praised the Memphis City Police and officials for taking swift action in the case. First of all, I wonder if you agree, but first let me just play what a Memphis pastor, Earle Fisher said on this program earlier this week.
EARLE J. FISHER, MEMPHIS PASTOR: I mean, too much in my estimation, benevolence given to the city and the police department for this “Rapid response”. This is the byproduct of aggressive and fierce organizing on the ground for the last several years. And these two entities, the mayor’s office and the police department are the ones who implemented the SCORPION Unit in the first place. It’s almost like starting a fire and then getting credit for trying to…
Read More: PBS Host, Top Journalism Dean Agree Black Officers Motivated by White Supremacy