FBI Director James Comey defended the police, saying that “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist."

[kpete]

Speaking at Georgetown University this morning, Comey said citizens need to have more empathy for police, that police response time is not influenced by race, and that “law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods.”

Comey also cited and quoted from the song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from the Broadway play Avenue Q, adding that, while everyone has a duty to try and overcome bias, “racial bias isn’t epidemic in those who join law enforcement any more than it is epidemic in academia or the arts.” And yet “after years of police work, officers often can’t help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel” and begin viewing black citizens differently.


Comey’s call for empathy for police felt especially strange after he sympathetically explained why an officer would take the “mental shortcut” of racially-tinged judgment, i.e. why he would behave in a racist fashion:

Two young black on one side of the street look like so many others that officer has locked up. The two white men on the other side of the street, even in the same clothes, do not. The officer does not make the same association about the two white guys. The officer turns toward one side of the street and not the other.

Why would the FBI Director ask citizens to sympathize with prejudiced thinking against a group of Americans he knows have been routinely and specifically targeted by law enforcement?


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/12/everyones-little-bit-racist-says-fbi-director/

[TwilightGardener]

1. Why is the FBI Director wading into race relations?

Public officials should really try to stay in their own wheelhouses. Go catch you some Most-Wanteds, James.

[Downwinder]

2. I'm sure Mr. Comey is familiar with another song

from a Broadway play, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught."

[GeorgeGist]

3. Major douchebaggery.

[sakabatou]

4. He's taking his cues from Ave. Q?

[MisterP]

7. ugh, he's gonna go Full Carell

[Initech]

5. A little bit country, a little bit rock n roll?

[MisterP]

6. ah, the Gary Oldman defense: "everyone pulled over SECRETLY wants to scream that the patroller's

a ZOG puppet, but we're all picking on Mel Gibson for accidentally letting it slip"

[Ramses]

8. Unbeliveable