Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough vented for 17 minutes Monday morning about Michael Brown and Ferguson, Mo.
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, complained about liberals using Brown’s death as a galvanizing rallying point because he perceived Brown to be an unworthy, guilty party; and he blamed media outlets like the New York Times for perpetuating stereotypes about police officers.
“We are doing such a grave disservice to police officers in this country,” he said after criticizing Sunday’s silent protest by five of the St. Louis Rams. “They are using Michael Brown as the face of black oppression.”
In effect, Scarborough’s frustration stemmed from what he saw as an open-and-shut case (he spoke often in terms of “facts”) that has become a highly partisan issue.
Scarborough added that “[Michael Brown] acted in ways that would get my children shot. … [T]hat’s your hero?”
Scarborough also criticized protesters in places like the Bay Area: “That’s why you want to block African-American commuters with five children going to work in the Bay Area and get them fired?”
While he lamented liberals’ use of Ferguson, he also drew parallels with the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case wherein “right-wingers clinged [sic] to this nasty, thuggish guy.”
“My right-wing friends all embraced George Zimmerman and in so doing, humiliated themselves,” he said.
He further conceded that African-Americans face a more strict and dangerous legal system in the United States. “There are two justice systems in America,” he said, “No white man would lay in the street for four and a half hours,” a reference to the amount of time Brown’s body was left in the street after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot him.
He said that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has “some work to do, not just on Ray Rice” He hammered home that his opinion was indicative of “95 percent” of Americans’ internal thought process but that “there are cowards that won’t say that on TV.”
Listen to the whole segment below.
Screengrab via Morning Joe/MSNBC