On the heels of the revelation that the officers involved in the shooting death of Louisiana father of four Alton Sterling won’t be charged, D.L. Hughley has made it clear what he thinks will finally bring police brutality against Black people to an end.
“It only will stop when we have the collective will to make it so,” he says on “The D.L. Hughley Show” Tuesday, March 27. “We can’t do it on our own … until the country collectively decides they’ve had enough of watching young men and women being slain in the streets, it will continue.”
Hughley, who gave credit to the Parkland, Fla., student organizers of March For Our Lives, went on to say it is not the job of police officers to hand down final judgments and convictions.
“America has not yet had its fill of watching young Black people being slaughtered,” he says after listing off incidents that lead to the killings of Stephon Clark, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and others. “It is your conscious that you turn off. Until we collectively say, ‘Enough’ — and people should be accountable for what they do. You don’t have to wear that uniform, you get to. And there should be a certain amount of responsibility that comes with it and it should be the utmost responsibility. Taking a life should be the last thing you do.
“It cannot just be that we are the only ones tired of seeing us slain,” he continues. “Collectively, America has to take those blindfolds off and see what is happening here. … When is it that you will say, ‘Enough is enough?’ I know it’s a dangerous job to be a police officer, but it’s equally as dangerous to be a Black person changing a lightbulb, calling the police, holding a cell phone, holding a toy gun.”
In response, many viewers have backed up Hughley’s sentiments.
