Whoopi Goldberg asks if 'we need to see White people get beat up' to see change, then quickly clarifies

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Whoopi Goldberg asks if 'we need to see white people get beat up' to see police reform

"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked on Monday if "we need to see white people get beat up" to see meaningful police reform following the death of Tyre Nichols. 

"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg wondered on Monday if "we need to see White people get beat up" to see meaningful police reform before clarifying that she was "not suggesting that" following the death of Tyre Nichols. 

"Do we need to see White people also get beat before anybody will do anything? I’m not suggesting that. So don’t write us and tell me what a racist I am. I’m just asking is that what people have to see in order to wake up and realize this affects us all?" Goldberg asked. 

She also wondered when this brutality would "finally lead to some police reform from the ground up."

"I asked this question way too many times at this table. But, you know, when will the brutality finally lead to some police reform from the ground up? Because clearly it doesn’t matter if it’s a White policeman or Black policeman. It is a problem in the policing itself. It seems things don't seem to make sense to people unless it's somebody they can feel or they can recognize," she said. 

"The View" host Whoopi Goldberg on Jan. 30, 2023. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)

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Authorities in Memphis released video of five police officers brutally beating Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop on Jan. 7. Nichols, who was 29, spent three days in the hospital before he succumbed to his injuries. 

Co-host Ana Navarro said that Nichols' death was the reason why "we cannot ban history."

"How many more times are we going to have to see Black youth beaten to death, beaten to the point of not being recognizable and do it over and over again. Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tyre Nichols. How many more times? This is why we cannot ban history," Navarro began. 

"This is why in the midst of all this happening banning AP African American studies in Florida is the wrong thing to do. We need to learn from history not to repeat the same things over and over again," she said. 

"The View" hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin on Sept. 20, 2022. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)

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Co-host Sunny Hostin said the "same energy" directed toward gas prices, debt and inflation needed to be directed towards police reform.

"I think, you know, to get real police reform — which would include personal liabilities for police officers. What most people don't know, is that when this type of thing happens and there’s a civil settlement, we pay for that, for that civil settlement. It comes out of tax payer dollars, it doesn't come out of police budgets. When that changes, and we get some energy around that type of reform, I think it will change. Because we got a lot of energy about gas prices, and debt and inflation. I would like to see that same energy directed towards police reform because we are also paying for police brutality out of our tax dollars," she said.

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that there should be a standardized screening for police officers. 

"If you get federal dollars, you need to have screening like our military does that flags sociopaths, psychopaths so they never end up in the force in the first place. We need a well funded national database of bad cops," she said. 

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks during a press conference on Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tennessee, alongside Tyre Nichols' mother and stepfather RowVaughn and Rodney Wells. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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The Memphis Police Department disbanded their "Scorpion unit" because the unit's members were involved in the brutal beating of Nichols. 

The five former Memphis police officers were fired after the incident and are being charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault in addition to other charges.