New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made waves with the police union last week after his comments that his biracial son needed to take special precautions when dealing with police.
According to the Huffington Post, de Blasio commented, after a Staten Island, N.Y., grand jury decided not to indict an officer responsible for the choking death of 43-year-old Eric Garner, that he and his wife "had to literally train" their son, Dante, on how to handle dealings with police.
"The head of the city's police union said de Blasio's statement 'threw cops under the bus,' '' the Huffington Post notes.
De Blasio, who has refused to endorse the grand jury's Garner decision, didn't back down from his position that the way black children are policed in this country differs from their white counterparts.
"It's different for a white child. That's just the reality in this country," de Blasio said Sunday on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. "And with Dante, very early on with my son, we said, 'Look, if a police officer stops you, do everything he tells you to do. Don't move suddenly, don't reach for your cellphone,' because we knew, sadly, there's a greater chance it might be misinterpreted if it was a young man of color."
De Blasio noted that he didn't believe that he was any different from any father who has children of color. "I'm just saying what people are actually experiencing and have been for decades," he said Sunday. "I've talked to a lot of families of color, well before this time, because I've said things like this before. And they've said to me over and over and over again that they appreciate someone finally acknowledging that they have that conversation with their sons. It's a painful conversation. You can sense there's a contradiction in that conversation."
Read more at the Huffington Post.