On Monday’s episode of “Meet the Press,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani engaged in a tense back-and-forth with Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson. The subject of discussion focused on how cities with a small amount of Black police officers and a large population of Black citizens are at risk of experiencing a Ferguson situation.
Giuliani, a true right-winger, mentioned that he and other NYC mayors have gone out of their way to include more minorities in the city’s police force, NYPD. But he, then, adds that Black-on-Black crime is really the more important factor in the matter.
“I find it very disappointing that you are not discussing the fact that 93 percent of Blacks in America are killed by other Blacks,” Guiliani said regarding white police officers killing blacks. “We’re talking about the exception here,” Giuliani continued.
Dyson then dives into the conversation with strong rebuttals.
“First of all, most Black people who commit crimes against other Black people go to jail,” he began. “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 that are deeply imbedded 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.”
Giuliani goes on to tell Dyson that Black-on-Black crime is the reason police have to be in Black communities in the first place. He asks Dyson “How about you reduce crime?”
Dyson replies “When I become mayor, I’ll do that.”
When Giuliani adds that officers wouldn’t be in minority neighborhoods if its residents weren’t “killing each other 70 to 75 percent of the time,” Dyson closes the segment with a blunt conclusion on the former mayor’s mindset.
“Look at this— this is the defense mechanism of white supremacy at work in your mind, sir,” Dyson tells the conservative.
Later, the former mayor went on FOX News to defend himself. He told “Fox & Friends” hosts that he has saved plenty of Black lives during the eight years he served as mayor.
“I’d like to see if Dr. Dyson has ever saved as many lives in his community as I’ve saved,” he boasted.
Check out Michael Eric Dyson’s exchange with Rudy Giuliani below.