The acquittal of Officer Edward Nero in the Freddie Gray case was little more than an excuse for racial concern-troll Bill O’Reilly to whitesplain to his African American guest about Blacks Behaving Badly in Baltimore.
Clarence Mitchell explained that the case against Baltimore Officer Nero was the weakest of several more cases upcoming against other police officers involved in Gray’s arrest. Gray's death while in police custody prompted riots in Baltimore and, from Fox, race-baiting attacks on Baltimore's mayor, its black community and African American Marilyn Mosby who brought charges against the police.
What did O’Reilly want to know about the trial? Not the evidence against Nero, not the evidence against the other officers but whether Blacks might be Behaving Badly again. Or, as O’Reilly put it, “Any sign of any unrest in Baltimore?” Yeah, just asking.
Mitchell, an African American talk show host, did a good job of making the case for the community. He directly challenged the idea that “Baltimore’s out of control,” noting, “there has not been anything related to violence” after this trial or a previous mistrial against another officer. “Justice was rendered in this case as well as the mistrial,” Mitchell said. “So I don’t want this national narrative out there, Bill, that somehow Baltimoreans out of control and can’t handle judgments in court.”
O’Reilly wasn’t about to let Baltimore off the hook. He replied, “The proof will be what happens.” He asked suggestively about the five upcoming cases, “Do you expect more intensity on the part of the public?”
Then O’Reilly got around to suggesting that while Gray’s death may have been undeserved or even wrongful, the real problem is that African Americans refuse to straighten up and fly right.
O’REILLY: Has the issue of Mr. Gray ever been raised in the sense that he was a drug-involved person – the reports are he was a drug addict – and a street-level dealer - and that his interactions with police escalated over the years because of his narcotics involvement. Has anybody ever spotlighted that? Has that been a topic of discussion? Because, as we know, Baltimore has a fairly serious drug problem.
Mitchell agreed that Baltimore has a serious heroin problem and said he has spotlighted it. But he also made the point that harsh policing is contributing to the problem, not helping to solve it.
MITCHELL: But, Bill, what you need to understand, the audience needs to understand: for over a decade, this city has experienced some really harsh policing under then-mayor Martin O’Malley, then Governor O’Malley, now we know presidential candidate O’Malley, where a hundred thousand folks were locked up in a city of 600,000, Bill. Each year. And 30,000 of those arrests thrown out for lack of probable cause. So the relationship between the police and community bubbled up with Freddie. Freddie Gray’s a bad example. But there’s been a long-term problem associated with the police and the community and Baltimore.
But O’Reilly refused to recognize that police might be part of the problem. “It might be that the system’s overwhelmed,” he said, thereby suggesting that law-breaking African Americans deserve all the blame.
“It’s never the citizen’s fault,” O’Reilly said, when someone like Gray dies in police custody. Then he started whitesplaining:
O’REILLY: Freddie Gray’s lifestyle, for many years, led him to this terrible thing which has not only impacted him and his family but all the police officers and that lifestyle should be condemned. I mean, this narcotics trafficking is awful. It’s just devastating.
[…] You know what we’re dealing with in society now. Everything’s a disease, everything’s excusable, even drug trafficking.
Watch Donald Trump's milkshake BFF below, from the May 23 The O’Reilly Factor.
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