On Thursday, the cast of The View discussed the murder of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was killed Tuesday after she called the police for help, and the conversation was very divided! While all the hosts agreed the young Black girl was taken waaay too soon, they differed when it came to how the police handled the situation. Meghan McCain actually defended the police who shot and killed the teenager!
To start the segment, TV personalities reacted to graphic footage captured on the police officer’s body camera (below) which showed a hectic altercation between a group of people, including teenage girls. You can see the officer pull up to the scene, quickly try to figure out what’s happening, and then reaching for his gun as Ma’Khia lunges at a girl in a pink jumpsuit while holding what appears to be a knife. She is quickly shot and killed, with no other methods to de-escalate the situation taken first.
The View also aired a clip of CNN’s Don Lemon discussing the situation, in which he urged viewers to take all matters of the video into consideration, seeming to stick up for the Columbus, Ohio police as well. Whoopi Goldberg then facilitated a chat between the ABC stars to get their opinion on both videos.
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After Sunny Hostin carefully explained why she vehemently disagreed with Don’s viewpoint, rightly pointing out law enforcement continue to treat white individuals with far greater respect and dignity than their treatment of people of color, Meghan said:
“I understand everything Sunny is saying, I hear you loud and clear. I just disagree in this situation because she was about to stab another girl and I think the police officer did what he thought he had to do.”
Meghan also decided to think about the situation from a different perspective — that of the girl who was about to be stabbed — adding:
“I don’t know enough about police protocol, but I do know had she been able to successfully stab the girl she possibly could’ve hit an artery, she possibly could’ve killed the girl herself. I thought many things too…I thought, where are the parents in this situation? Where was the parent to try to de-escalate the situation or the foster parent at the time, in the beginning?”
The conservative columnist continued, clearly choosing her words carefully:
“This one is harder for me, and if there’s one thing I learned from the MeToo movement, it’s that I’m going to take everything by case by case by case situation and I don’t think that everything is always comparable.”
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Just the fact that she has to say “this one is harder for me” shows there is a major problem when it comes to law enforcement in our country. We shouldn’t be discussing the unjust killings of BIPOC individuals on a weekly basis. This frustration rung true for co-host Joy Behar, who said she was finding it hard to talk about these acts of apparent police brutality when there has been no real change “with the way these things are being conducted.” Agreeing, McCain noted of her complex relationship with the law:
“The way I was raised is to respect authority, to respect police officers, to respect law enforcement. I have a lot of friends who are in the military and who are also police officers. But working on this show and experiencing what I’ve experienced over the past few years, no one without two brain cells in their head can understand that police tend to treat African Americans and people of color a different way than they do white people. And it’s just a fact we’re all trying to reconcile and come to terms with.”
It’s good to know she at least sees the problem! Watch the full conversation (below) to hear more of the ladies’ well-throughout out and complex reactions to this truly sad case.
Thoughts, Perezcious readers?
Do you think the likes of Meghan and Don are right for asking the public to think about the full scope of the situation rather than immediately lashing out at the police in this particular case? Or do you agree with Sunny about the probability of this happening with a white victim being lower, and therefore that being the problem? Let us know in the comments.
Regardless, one thing is painfully clear, and that is that the need for reform and better training is absolutely necessary if we want to move forward as a healing country.
The post Meghan McCain Defends Police In Fatal Shooting Of Teen Ma’Khia Bryant: He Did 'What He Thought He Had To Do' appeared first on Perez Hilton.
