Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk

Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk

Trump's response to healing the racial divide in America is to offer the Black community more "law and order."

Written By NewsOne Now

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met face-to-face on Monday night for their first presidential debate at Hofstra University.

The two candidates touched on a number of issues and spent a considerable amount of time addressing racial tensions around the nation. During their exchange, Clinton and Trump addressed race, policing, and stop and frisk practices, on which both candidates offered their opposing views.

Roland Martin and his panel of guests discussed the candidates’ responses during Tuesday’s edition of NewsOne Now. Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of the Color of Change and one of the many individuals who worked on the campaign to end stop and frisk in New York City, said, “Not only did it not work, but it created tensions between communities and law enforcement where people didn’t trust law enforcement.”

Robinson added, “People were treated like enemy combatants in their own neighborhoods.”

Instead of using stop and frisk policies in cities around the country to end crime in the Black community, Robinson suggested that, “If you want to actually deploy stop and frisk, let’s stop and frisk Donald Trump for his taxes. Let’s stop and frisk Donald Trump for his foundation records and the money that he’s used in inappropriate ways.”

Trump’s response on how to heal the racial divide was to offer the African-American community more “law and order.” NewsOne Now panelist Lauren Victoria Burke, Political Analyst and Writer for NBCBLK, said Trump’s response essentially “brands Black people to crime.”

“Every time he [Donald Trump] brings African-Americans up, it’s about something negative and it’s usually something criminal, in fact, it’s almost always something criminal,” said Burke.

Spencer Overton, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, explained Trump did not offer an answer to heal the racial divide and believes a major part of the issue deals with the vilification of Black communities. He said Trump’s views make African-Americans look as if they are not human beings.

Overton also agreed with Robinson’s assertion that stop and frisk policies “make communities less safe” and explained if African-American communities aren’t working with police because of a lack of trust, then everyone is unsafe.

Later during his remarks about Trump’s responses to racial issues, Overton said, “law and order applies to police” just as well as it can be applied to the communities in which law enforcement officers serve.

Watch Roland Martin and the NewsOne Now panel discuss the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the video clip above.


Civil Rights Leader Condemns Trump’s Call To Return Stop & Frisk: Roland Martin and NewsOne Now discuss Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s remarks regarding race, policing, and healing the racial divide.