Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes was none too happy with CNN host Erin Burnett for calling the protesters and rioters in Baltimore "thugs."
Black Baltimore Councilman Blasts White CNN Host: 'Just Call Them Ni**ers':
Burnett, who is white, began by noting that both Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlins-Blake and President Obama had referred to the "bad actors" as "thugs."
Stokes, who is black, rejected the word and told Burnett she was referring to teenagers and young people — "our children" — who clashed with police on Monday night.
"But how does that justify what they did?" Burnett said. "I mean, that’s a sense of right and wrong. They know it’s wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old person’s home. I mean, come on."
"Come on?" Stokes said. "So calling them thugs — just call them niggers. Just call them niggers."
"When you say 'come on,' come on what?" he added. "You wouldn't call your a child a thug if they did something which was not what you'd expect them to do."
"I would hope I would call my son a thug if he ever did such a thing," Burnett shot back.
Burnett also asked Stokes and former NAACP President and Maryland Congressman Kweisi Mfume what they thought about the Baltimore mother who was caught on film earlier today, slapping her son up side his head when she caught him participating the riots. Both Stokes and Mfume took issue with Burnett's characterization of the incident, with Stokes telling her it was better to have his mother hitting him than what the police might do to him and that she was trying to save his life.
