‘It’s sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life,” said former President George W. Bush in a discussion of the decision not to indict the police officer charged with killing Eric Garner in Brooklyn in July.
“There are those who say… race seems to be more of a problem with what a lot of people term ‘a post racial presidency,’” said Candy Crowley in an interview on CNN. “When you saw what happened in the streets of New York in the video, what did you think?” asked Crowley, who hosts “State of the Union.”
“I thought ‘how sad.’ You know, the verdict was hard to understand,” former President George W. Bush said. “I hadn’t seen all the details — but it’s sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life.”
“I remember back when I was a kid, in the 70s, there were race riots with cities being burned,” Bush said. “I do think we’ve improved.”
“I had dinner with Condi [former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] the other night and we talked about this subject,” said Bush. “And she just said, ‘You know, you just gotta understand, there are lots of black folks that are incredibly, more and more, distrusting of law enforcement.”
Looking sad, he added: “Which is a shame, because law enforcement’s job is to protect everybody.”