Fox’s Andy McCarthy: “We really have to attack the premise of this whole idea that there’s institutional racism”
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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.