Samantha Bee Tackles Police Brutality, Explains Defunding the Police on 'Full Frontal'
Samantha Bee tackled police brutality, the George Floyd protests and the need to defund the police on the latest episode of Full Frontal.
“A sea change is happening, and it is step one, the first of many, to upend white supremacy,” Bee said. “We have to change the infrastructure of police and justice in this country. It all comes down to this. Black lives matter.”
Bee then shared clips from some of the George Floyd protests where officers have responded to the calls to end police brutality with “absolutely brutal violence.” “It is horrifying that the authorities are beating, gassing and running over peaceful protestors,” Bee said. “They’re so out of control, I’m surprised they didn’t ticket the people they ran over for scuffing up the paint job.”
Bee also blamed politicians like Donald Trump and Tom Cotton for enabling the police, and dismantled the “one bad apple” theory being pushed by right-wing media.
“What people in the mainstream media often ignore is police brutality unless it is recorded on camera, and even then, a lot of white people have the privilege to do nothing,” Bee said. “The videos of police officers killing George Floyd, Eric Garner and countless others are horrific, and again, those officers knew they were being filmed. To see how fucking awful it could be when cameras aren’t rolling, you just have to look at Breonna Taylor’s case.”
After her takedown of police brutality, Bee provided an explanation on how to defund to police and why it’s important.
“Given the enormous harm being done to the black and brown communities, we can’t only keep responding with the same weak incremental tweaks,” Bee said. “George Floyd himself was killed in a city that has been called a shining star of police reform. Police reform hasn’t brought the change we need but there is something we can do: We can defund the police.”
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