It’s been yet another tough week for Black people in America and CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King is just as fatigued with unmitigated racism as the rest of us.
During a segment of the show on Tuesday, King voiced her frustration with the way Black men are still being preyed on by racists across American society. She said it was like “open season.”
“I don’t even know what to do or how to handle this at this particular time. I know that this is … I am speechless,” King said. “I am really, really speechless about what we’re seeing in television this morning. It feels to me like an open season and that it’s just not sometimes a safe place to be in this country for Black men, and today it’s too much for me.”
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Her comments were in response to two racially-charged incidents that happened within days of each other, according to Deadline. She made them after Vladimir Duthiers’ report on the Central Park incident in which Amy Cooper, a white woman, falsely called the police and told them she was being threatened by Christian Cooper, a Black man, who asked her to leash her dog.
“Once again I say thank goodness that there’s videotape. I think as the daughter of a Black man and the mother of a Black man, this is really too much for me today,” King said of the Cooper incident. “I’m still rattled by that last story and she’s practically strangling her dog to make these false accusations against another Black man.”
The “last story” King was referencing is the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis by a police officer. Floyd was restrained in handcuffs on the ground while the officer forcefully pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes. Floyd and bystanders continually pleaded for Floyd’s life as her repeatedly told the officer, “I can’t breathe.”
“I’m still so upset by that last story where the man is handcuffed underneath a car where people are pleading, ‘Please, he can’t breathe and we’re watching a man die,” King said “So we go from that story to this story, where she (Amy Cooper) falsely accuses a Black man on television.”
She reiterated her gratefulness that both incidents were recorded.
“I say again … Thank goodness there is videotape on both of these stories so you can see what is happening here,” King concluded.
