Fox’s Andy McCarthy: “We really have to attack the premise of this whole idea that there’s institutional racism”
Published
Citation From the June 4, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum
MARTHA MACCALLUM (HOST): I mean, I remember seeing interviews with moms in Chicago who were horrified at the pullback of police after brutality stories created an environment, Andy McCarthy, where police felt that, you know -- I think in some cases they were holding back, they were afraid that they would get in trouble if they did their job.
ANDY MCCARTHY: Yeah, well, that's what happens, Martha, when the police don't feel like they're being backed up by their political leadership. And I think part of what's going on here -- and I feel like I'm dating myself when I say this stuff -- but, you know, I grew up in the Bronx in the '60s. So I was a kid in New York in the '60's in the 70's and the 80's. That was a very different time in America than the relative domestic tranquility that we've had for the last generation. There's been a kind of revolution in policing that lead to a real significant drop in crime across the board. And I think in a lot of the living memory, the adult memory of a lot of policy makers today, they don't understand how easily it can go back to the bad old days. That's number one.
And number two. I think we really have to attack the premise of this whole idea that there's institutional racism, whether it's in the police department or other major institutions. I would just simply say -- I was a lawyer for a very long time in the criminal justice system. Who runs the criminal justice system? Progressives. Progressive lawyers. Who runs the institutions of opinion in America? Progressives. Now, I'm not a progressive. But I don't doubt that they believe what they say about racial equality and progress. Does anyone really think that they would tolerate systematic racism in the institutions that they run? It's ridiculous.