The staged protest by five St. Louis Rams football players over the grand jury decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of black youth Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was the "final straw" for talk show host Joe Scarborough.
Scarborough launched into a semi-monologue during MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to denounce protesters of the grand jury decision, because he maintained race was not the issue in the incident.
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"This Ram thing was the final straw for me," Scarborough said Monday. "In this case, if my child or your child knocked over a convenience store, and then went down the middle of the street shouting profanities at a police officer — let's just say in Staten Island, in Queens — and then went into the car and started punching the police officer and grabbing for his gun, he'd probably be shot in the car."
The Rams players made the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" pose as a show of support to Ferguson protesters before Sunday's football game, angering police officers who supported Wilson's right to defend himself against Brown.
Scarborough said he expected Rams owners and NFL officials "had some work to do," because police officers had a right to be angry about the players' gestures. He also questioned why Brown, who had stolen cigars from a convenience store before he reportedly attacked Wilson, had become "the face of black oppression."
"There are so many great people to embrace as heroes in the black community, that deciding you're going to embrace a guy that knocked over a convenience store, and then, according to grand jury testimony, acted in ways that would get my children shot on Staten Island or in Queens or in Brooklyn, that's your hero?
"That's the reason you want to burn down black businesses that small business owners in Ferguson have worked their entire lives for? That's why you want to block African-American commuters with five children going to work in [San Diego] and get them fired?" he asked.
Scarborough said he had "sat here quietly and listened to BS being spewed all over this network and all over other networks" about the incident, and maintained he couldn't "take it anymore."
"I will say what I said last week. And, I say this not to black children across America, because, as I have said repeatedly on this show time and time again . . . there are two justice systems in America.
"A young black man is treated much worse than a young white man on the street, in the courtroom, in jail. There are two Americas when it comes to criminal justice," he said.
Scarborough, a former Republican Florida congressman, said other people on the "Morning Joe" set "stare at me slack-jawed" because of his comments, but were "afraid to say anything on the air, even though they know it's BS."
"Check the laws. Check the statutes. It would not happen anywhere in the whitest suburb in America. That black cop that shoots a white guy for doing the identical thing would not be indicted.
"If I've offended anybody by saying what I've said, trust me, 95 percent of America think just like me. Just because there are cowards that won't say that on TV, that's your problem. It's not mine," he said.
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