Ashley Akunna on Lynching, Police Brutality, and Anti-Black Terrorism

According to Ashley Akunna, modern day police brutality is the evolution of lynching.  

“After the civil war, there was an increase of lynching within the South,” Ashley Akunna, host of The Grapevine, stated. “And this was, you know, state sanctioned violence against African Americans, men women, and children. A lot of people who were in their cells waiting for trail were visited in the night by mods, taken out, and hung. There was no jury, there was no trail, there was no judge.”

She went on to state, “It just seems that every week, every month there’s a new Black boy, there’s a new Black woman, there’s a new Black man who was shot, who was killed, and the officers that do this, of the street vigilantes that do this, are not arrested or they’re not tried or they’re — you know, the most that happens to them is that they lose their jobs. What the government is saying to us is that Black bodies do not matter”

Akunna encourages people to understand and empathize with the messages behind groups like Black Lives Matter and hopes that this time is eventually looked back on as a breaking point that incited change within law enforcement and various communities.

More Videos