CNN's Marc Lamont Hill: "This Is Not a Riot" But "Uprisings" Against "Police Terrorism"

“No, there shouldn’t be calm tonight. Black people are dying in the streets. They’ve been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries...I’m not calling these people rioters. I’m calling these uprisings, and I think it’s an important distinction to make. This is not a riot. There have been uprisings in major cities and smaller cities around this country for the last year because of the state violence waged against black female and male bodies forever....Part of what it means to say black lives matter, is to assert our right to have rage – righteous rage, righteous indignation in the face of state violence and extrajudicial killing. Freddie Gray is dead. That’s why the city is burning and let’s make that clear. It’s not burning because of these protesters. The city is burning because the police killed Freddie Gray and that’s a distinction we have to make....We can’t pathologize people who, after decades and centuries of police terrorism, have decided to respond in this way.”  
— CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill on CNN Tonight, April 27, 2015.