House Majority Whip James Clyburn said he lives in more fear of police now than during racial segregation in the South.
“I didn’t grow up in fear of police, even in a segregated environment. We never feared the police. All of a sudden, now I do fear the police. The young blacks fear the police,” the South Carolina Democrat told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“Why? Because we have built-in a system that’s responding, once again, to Brown v. Board of Education and everything that comes with it,” he said in reference to the Supreme Court decision that deemed segregation in schools unconstitutional.
Clyburn, the highest-rank black member of Congress, said he supports restructuring, not defunding, law enforcement, as some Democrats have pushed in the wake of massive protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
“I wouldn’t say defund. Deconstruct,” he said.
