during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. the beat with ari melber starts right now hi, ari. thanks, nicolle welcome to the beat. i m ari melber we are tracking several stories, including maya wylie we begin with the escalating heat on defendant donald trump the nation watched as he came to new york for the first criminal arraignment of his life, a legal requirement, not a choice. trump had to sit in court for this unusually long i rainment which included a rare rebuke by the judge for threats he had been making. those threats part of a second civil case also filed this week by the d.a. dealing with the clash of some house republicans. here s the news right now. today donald trump is back in new york again and again under court order. these are not trips that he chose. they have been forced on him by the law and how often he is on allegedly, under the allegations, the wrong side of the law. if you re trying to keep track or it seems like this stuff is happening
malcolm venable: you saw a black man who was like, standing up to white people. george: who are you calling crazy, honky? peter casey: the shows had depth to them. and they tackled racial issues. instructor: very good, very good ladies. who s next? come on, now, who s next? we re all friends here. hereman: well, you may all be friends, but we don t touch anything that s been kissed by a nigger. helen: i hope you got on your best suit! jay moriarty: the flashback episode of what jeffersons were doing the day martin luther king was shot, it ends with martin luther king s speech. martin luther king: we ve got some difficulties ahead, but i want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promised land. tim reid: but the fly in the ointment was that they were all written primarily by white executives who had a very myopic view of black america. norman lear: i feel qualified to do that as a human being who shared some of the same concerns.
accounts, the current d.a., alvin bragg, has said he still has open his criminal financial investigation. in other words, the criminal component to what letitia james did. if donald trump said something that is any way false and alvin bragg can prove it, his case gets much, much stronger, and many defendants go down because they have a lot of hubris, and they think okay, i can bs my way through this if you get caught with one or two false statements that the d.a. can prove, that case gets much, much stronger. have you ever sent arrogant people to jail i used to prosecute basically a bunch of rich, white executives, and many of them, almost because of the nature of their work, are sort of type a people who sort of feel like
you may all be friends but we don t touch anything that s been kissed by a nigger. the flashback episode what jeffersons were doing the day martin luther king shot. it ends with the speech. we ve got difficult days ahead but i want you to know that tonight we have a people that will get to the promised land. but the fly in the ointment was that they were all written primarily by white executives who had a very myopic view of black america. i feel qualified to do that as a human being who shared some of those same concerns and we had a couple more writers who were themselves african-american. does he miss the mark a lot? yeah, he does. but he captured some moments that had not been captured before in terms of showing
when it is a misrepresentation on the screen, it has done on many levels great harm. in the radio amos and andy was one of the most popular sitcoms but the people who did it were white. the original pilot for the show were done in black face and the sponsor said, i don t know if hs going to go over well. so they cast it with some very funny black comedians. what do you think, lightning? this sure is the same house. it was at times hysterically funny but the stereotypes left a negative taste in a lot of our mouths. the central characters are all just different iterations of the minstrel archetypes from minstrel shows where white men were putting on black face.