TV One’s Roland Martin called out former speechwriter Jennifer Grossman this week for her pitiful attempt to explain the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. to him.
During a panel discussion on MSNBC Sunday, Grossman highlighted the lack of investment in “crime-ridden” African-American communities.
” … Is it because of white racism or is it because the crime rate is too high?” she asked, drawing an audible chuckle from Martin. “When are we going to get that crime rate down?”
Martin shot back, explaining that crime “doesn’t just happen,” but is a phenomena linked to a lack of investment and a homeownership in these communities.
“That’s a function of lack of home ownership, which is a function of lack of investment, which is a function of lack of resources,” he said. “And so, you can’t look at crime only through the prism of, ‘How do we send more police in?’ ”
MSNBC host Alex Witt then shifted attention to Washington, pointing out the lack of Black and brown faces among this year’s group of White House interns.
“The most important thing is the content of our character,” Grossman argued. “So whether or not you have racial diversity in that intern class, I would argue probably you have a lot more diversity in terms of political viewpoints because President Trump’s election has really stirred things up.”
“I’m a little concerned about creating intern classes where everybody looks different but thinks the same,” she added, to which Martin forbade her from ever quoting MLK.
“I will quote him!” Grossman yelled, wagging her finger in the air. “Do you want to have more of a debate on race? You’re kind of politically-correct bullying of people on racism is not going to work. So, I will quote Dr. Martin Luther King every single day!”
Martin followed up with this epic response:
“People love to quote the bottom of the speech and want to ignore the top of that speech, when Dr. King said America gave African-Americans a check with insufficient funds. He talked about combatting police brutality, in that speech where he talked about giving black folks the right to vote.”
“So that speech is an extensive speech.”
Watch more of their tense exchange above.
