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Joy Reid’s guest suggests Ma'Khia Bryant was shot for 'not being perfect’, says Blacks 'cannot have a bad day'

'We turn Black girls into grown women before they even are able to vote and are unable to see them as children,' Brittney Cooper said

MSNBC’s Joy Reid hosted a panel to have a discussion on Thursday, April 22, about 16-year-old teen Ma'Khia Bryant’s death, who was allegedly fatally shot by Columbus police officer Nicholas Reardon. During the conversation, one guest, Rutgers University Associate Professor Brittney Cooper, seemed to suggest that the 16-year-old was killed for “not being perfect”. Reid allegedly called the April 20 tragedy “murder” and also added that “people are already flipping from 'I have compassion for George Floyd's family' to 'That one, she deserved that. She deserved to die.”

Cooper went on to say that the Black Lives Matter movement has never been about Black people and compared Bryant's situation to George Floyd's death. “This was never the argument for the movement of Black lives ... that you just get to kill Black people, particularly when they're not being perfect. I think about how perfect ... the prosecution had to be in order to get the conviction for George Floyd. It had to be impeccable, they had to leave no stone unturned,” the professor told the 52-year-old television host. Cooper argued that Bryant's shortcomings on that day did not justify her fatal shooting 

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Cooper continued, “And if that is the standard, then no Black person is truly going to be safe if we cannot be having a bad day, if we cannot defend ourselves when we think we're gonna get jumped, if we call the cops and they can't show up and tell who the victim is and who the perpetrators are, and they can't use their training to adjudicate regular old everyday community conflict.” It was reported that it was Bryant who had called 911 to report some people ganging up on her but when the police turned up to her place, it was a different story. Arguing further, the panel guest said that people don’t often see Black girls like Bryant as a “child.”

“The way she's been talked about, because she was a big girl, right? And so people just see her as the aggressor. They don't see her humanity, they have adultified her. We turn Black girls into grown women before they even are able to vote and are unable to see them as children. So I have watched folks across the political spectrum really defend this and empathize with the officer, saying that he didn't have any other set of choices. What are we training police to do if they are not actually showing up on the scene and making the situation better for all involved? If you can't figure out how to deescalate a 16-year-old, even with a kitchen knife, when you've got a gun and you're a grown man, you shouldn't be a cop,” Cooper added.

A lot of people on Twitter reacted to the theory of Reid’s guest. One user tweeted, “Nonsense.  Complete nonsense.  I have off days, too; I don’t take a butcher knife and try to murder people.  I’m heartened though that most people on social media see through the BS people like Joy Reid are trying to push.  And it is BS.  Dangerous BS.” Another one said, “It’s absolutely tragic that the girl lost her life, but to claim this was just some backyard tussle is beyond insane. It’s not surprising this happens though, because look how many people will excuse it as ‘normal’. The MSM should be obliterated for their unethical reporting.”

“Its like they didnt watch the same video. she had a knife and attacked 2 people with it. she was inches away from stabbing ole girl. all that shit happened fast. shorty did not deserve to die but this panel is a joke,” a person added.

These remarks were made by the Internet and individual organizations, MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and nor does it support these claims being made on the Internet.