Joe Scarborough: Is George Floyd’s Death ‘Awakening White Americans’ Like Selma?

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough wondered on Friday if the death of George Floyd could be a turning point for the country as white Americans woke up to the realities African Americans face. The Morning Joe host spoke to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about attitudes of white people.

“I talked about this ABC News poll, but so many other polls are showing that this really is — this is a moment in time when Americans, white Americans – White Americans are waking up to the fact that what happened to George Floyd wasn’t an isolated incident,” Scarborough said.

“As I said in this latest poll, and you can see it in other polls back during Ferguson, most white Americans thought Ferguson was an isolated incident. Most Americans thought Eric Garner was an isolated incident. Most Americans always thought, like, Trayvon was an isolated incident. In fact, a lot of conservative media tried to defend George Zimmerman, as you’ll remember.”

“I remember being just distressed by all the conservatives that immediately rushed to George Zimmerman’s side. At the beginning of this, I noticed so many conservative media even were immediately calling out the police here. You see now many Americans, for the first time, are saying, OK, what you’ve known. When you had to talk to your young sons about the fact that they could be shot because they were black, and what they needed to do were ever stopped in a car.”

“Do you think that these numbers suggest that, just like after Selma, after the Birmingham church bombing, do you think George Floyd’s death, his tragic death, his murder, do you think that that’s awakening white Americans and all Americans to this police culture that risks the lives of black Americans every day?”

“I think it may have, Joe. I’m certainly hopeful that it has,” Robinson said.

“I think this has resonated in a way those earlier killings, even in their sum, right — because these isolated incidents kept happening, obviously not in isolation — but this one has struck home, clearly, in a way that previous ones did not,” he said.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.