Mike Pence Really Wants Y’All To Stop Talking About Racism When Police Kill Blacks, OK?
Gosh dang it, y’all. Why can’t everyone just stop bringing race and bias into the conversation when unarmed black men get shot by the police?
Donald Trump’s running mate, gay-hatin’ Indiana Governor Mike Pence, apparently wants black people to clearly know he hates them, too. During a roundtable discussion with clergy on Thursday, Pence expressed his wish that people please stop bringing up racism whenever they talk about law enforcement killing African-Americans. Instead, he said we all need to realize that police officers are “the best of us” and we need to stand behind them no matter what.
From Politico’s piece on the meeting:
Mike Pence said there is too much talk of “institutional racism and institutional bias” in the wake of unrest following police shootings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Police officers are human beings,” Pence said at a pastors’ roundtable at Radiant Church here. “And in difficult and life-threatening situations, mistakes are made and people have to be held to strict account, but we both believe that it’s important that we have a president who, as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, stands behind the men and women who serve in law enforcement.”
Pence said that police officers are “the best of us.”
“We ought to set aside this talk, this talk about institutional racism and institutional bias,” he said, calling such assertions “rhetoric of division.”
Later on in the day, Pence attended a town hall event where he excoriated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for acknowledging systemic racism does exist in law enforcement and other segments of our society. Not only did he disagree with Clinton, but he also noted that police are a “force for good.”
And, reading from the section of the GOP playbook that refers to violent protests in the wake of a police shooting, Pence criticized the demonstrations that occurred in Charlotte, saying that while he agrees in peaceful assembly, “there is no right to engage in violence against our citizens or against our property.”
I guess we should be thankful he didn’t say they were all on drugs, like someone we know did Thursday.
Anyway, so as not to give Pence another sad, please, please, PLEASE don’t bring up racism anymore when black people are shot, K?
