The shooting in Dallas that has so far left five police officers dead and six other wounded was carried out by at least one sniper who began shooting around 8:45 p.m. local time toward the end of a peaceful protest demanding an end to police brutality. In recent days, protests against police brutality and state violence have swept the country, in the wake of the fatal police shootings Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in St. Paul Minnesota. We speak with Marc Lamont Hill about the movement against police brutality, who said “I cannot allow Dallas to deter me from a principled critique of state violence. Far more people have died at the hands of law enforcement this year than have died as law-enforcement officers.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
MARC LAMONT HILL: I think we absolutely have to engage this question of race, there’s no doubt about that. We also have to engage the question of power, because everyday citizens don’t have equal footing with the state in order to battle the state, in the same way that I would argue Palestinians and Israelis don’t have the same footing. Right? One is in a position of power, one is an occupying force, one is not. The same with law enforcement in our communities. One is an occupying force and one is not. So, we have to look at that as well. And so, what — and I also want to be careful that we don’t link what happened last night to the Black Lives Matter movement, or the anti-state violence movement — resistance movement, because — and, and I know you’re not doing that, but that, that has been the instant, kind of, easy media narrative, and it becomes a sort of straw man. And that’s very dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: I found, in watching the coverage of the horror that took place last night, people saying, oh, you know, look at what happens, they’re protesting police and then they’re killed. But, was it really protesting the police or is it a peace movement? It is…