Although Attorney General William Barr acknowledged that there is racism in the United States, he told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he did not think the country's law enforcement is systematically racist.
"I think there's racism in the United States still, but I don't think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist," Barr said.
The attorney general said he understands the distrust "of the African American community given the history in this country … [but] since the 1960s, I think we've been in a phase of reforming our institutions and making sure that they're in sync with our laws and aren't fighting a rearguard action to impose inequities."
When asked if the reforming was working, Barr said "progress has been made," citing the example of the military as being "in the vanguard of bringing the races together and providing equal opportunity. I think law enforcement has been going through the same process."
The attorney general said there are instances of bad police officers, but insisted "we have to be careful about automatically assuming that the actions of an individual necessarily mean that their organization is rotten."
He added that "just reacting to [the George Floyd killing] by immediately putting the [police] department under investigation doesn't necessarily result in improving the situation."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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