TX Radio Host Michael Berry To Black Caller: “When You Act Like A Thug … You End Up Dead Like A Thug”
Berry: “Who Are Your People? Gang Bangers And Thugs On The Street Corner? Rapists And People Who Make Babies And Don't Raise Them?”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the July 18 edition of iHeart Radio's The Michael Berry Show:
CALLER: Listen, Mr. Michael Berry, look. My thing is this: I feel sympathetic to the police officers who lost their lives.
MICHAEL BERRY (HOST): No you don't.
CALLER: You know what I mean? As I -- Yes I do.
BERRY: No you don't.
CALLER: You --don't put words in my mouth. Don't put words in my mouth. Don't put words in my mouth.
BERRY: I don't need to put words in your mouth, I am telling you what you feel.
CALLER: Listen, alright? Listen. It is not my goal in life to kill police officers. It is not for me to be happy for police officers to get killed because they [are] human beings at the end of the day. Alright? So killing a police officer is not -- that’s not the solution. The solution is not to kill police officers.
BERRY: Wow, that’s profound, Chaos. I was wondering if maybe that was --
CALLER: Oh, that's profound? But look, listen. Yeah, but I’m just saying, don’t -- listen, I value human life. You see what I’m saying? So the thing is this, you only care, you only care when the police officers get killed. You see what I’m saying? When my people get killed --
BERRY: Who are your people? Gang bangers and thugs on the street corner? Rapists and people who make babies and don't raise them? That’s your people? How do you all know who you are? How do you gather? Because most black guys don't act like that. So how will you know which ones are your people who are called by your name? Thug? How do you know who your people are?
CALLER: No. All right --
BERRY: You know Chaos, white people will not defend white thugs. They won't do it. But why you feel so tribal that you defend punks is a big part of the problem. Because we could isolate them and we could marginalize them, except they have an army of sympathizers like you.
CALLER: Well let me ask you something, Mr. Michael Berry, you see, because my thing is this. Let’s say, you know, everybody that you say is a thug, like if somebody gets picked up by the police, if they got a police record, you wanna say, “Oh, they a thug,” or whatever. My thing is this. My thing is this, you know, like my man Tupac said, is there a way for me to change or am I just a victim of things I did to maintain. Now people may have --
BERRY: How did that turn out for him? I haven’t heard from him in awhile.
CALLER: Oh yeah? Well we all know what happened to him, all right? My thing is this, yo, when people get killed and you want to call them thugs or whatever – yo dog, you don't know what [their] life may have been from that moment on.
BERRY: I don't need to. I know that they make a new decision everyday when they wake up -- choices. Didn’t you hear George Jones song? Choices. It’s the choices you make in your life.
CALLER: All right, everybody makes bad choices, dog. This is what I’m trying to say. Nobody’s perfect here.
BERRY: I never said anybody was, I never said anybody was, but when you associate with thugs, when you act like a thug, when you fight with thugs, you end up dead like a thug. It's not that hard. See, you all have glamorized this life like you all are some sort of heroic freedom fighters. You’re not. You’re engaged in thuggery and you’re going to end up dead if you engage in thuggery.
Previously:
National Syndicated Radio Host Michael Berry: “Black Folk Don't Need To Hear No Economics”
TX Radio Host Michael Berry: “Guns Don't Kill People, Muslims Do”
Mic Highlights The “Sinister Extremists” Ted Cruz Helped Mainstream