Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Jody Armour.

The killing of George Floyd has sparked mass protests in Minneapolis with thousands of people turning out onto the streets and police firing stun grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. America has witnessed through smart phone video documentation, yet another brutal murder of a black man at the hands of police and although there has been a demand for Black Lives to Matter for years now, will Floyd be yet another victim in the deadly toll of racist policing?

Floyd’s killing came to light at almost the same time as another incident unfolded in New York City’s Central Park which could have turned deadly but didn’t. A liberal white woman named Amy Cooper called police falsely claiming that a black man was threatening her. The man in question, Christian Cooper filmed the incident exposing her lie.

Tied to both incidents is the recent killing of a black jogger named Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia by a former police officer and his son, also captured on video. It is part of a deadly and disturbing pattern that echoes throughout American history.

Jody Armour, the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America. He is also a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of The Open Society Institute’s Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, and he is the Race and Criminal Justice Correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali.

Rising Up with Sonali is a radio and television show that brings progressive news coverage rooted in gender and racial justice to a wide audience. 

Rising Up With Sonali was built on the foundation of Sonali Kolhatkar's earlier show, Uprising, which became the longest-running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman. 

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