MSNBC host Thomas Roberts on Monday said his network was not doing enough to dispel myths that women who used birth control were "sluts," immigrants just came to the United States to have "anchor babies" and LGBT people were pedophiles and disease carriers.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict, Roberts was joined by MSNBC hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Toure on Monday to discuss what the case's racial aspects meant for the social contract in America.
Roberts noted that defense attorney Mark O'Mara had asserted over the weekend that Zimmerman never would have been charged if he had been black.
"That is the most absurd assumption that we have heard throughout this," Toure pointed out.
"Trayvon [Martin] wouldn't be dead if he were white," Roberts agreed.
"If George Zimmerman had been black, well, he would have been dealing with the mass incarceration of black people that we have in this country when we're over arresting -- we can talk about stop-and-frisk in New York, that policy goes out, throughout the nation, many other places -- over arrested, over prosecuted, over convicted, over sentenced once convicted," Toure observed. "I mean, this idea that if George Zimmerman were black then suddenly he would invoke, what, black privilege and not have to go through all this? That's absurd."
