Hasan Piker

It's everything.

It's a huge part of it.

I mean, the early policing was slave catchers.

I mean, that's what the initial policing system started off as.

In the north, I think it was still invested in the protection of capital.

I think it was like harbor police, basically.

And then in the south, it was slave catchers and slave patrols.

So from its inception, policing as an institution has been an institution that protects the interests of capital.

And also, it was unbelievably racist, a constant towering, occupying force over the underclass, the permanent underclass that we've designed in society at the time.

It was, you know, African men and women.

that were enslaved by force.

And in many ways, the relics of that white supremacist structure still very clearly exists in our institutions.

It comes out in sentencing disparity, in the way that we interpret certain incidents, stereotyping in the media.

It's all over.

It's a pervasive, cancerous force in American politics.

And it never gets addressed.

And it's been a very effective weapon that I think our capital-owning class has wielded to keep the working classes divided.

I mean, LBJ very famously talked about this.

He said, you know, if you can convince the lowest white man that he's higher than the highest black man, that he'll open up his wallets for you.

And that's –