Ice T knows how to have a long-lasting career. He was a pioneer in the early days of rap and hip hop with his solo rap career, he’s been the frontman of the heavy metal band Body Count for 30 years, and he’s been the star of
Law & Order: SVU for 20 years. Talk about longevity. In that time, he’s seen it all, and going from “Cop Killer” (his song about police brutality that both President George HW Bush and VP Quayle denounced) to playing a cop on TV for two decades, he definitely has a unique perspective on systemic racism within the police force.Chatting with Jimmy Fallon for
The Tonight Show on Wednesday night, Ice T, who just re-released his 2017 song “No Lives Matter,” explained that on
Law & Order, and in real life, class and poverty play a huge role in how the police treat people.
“Let’s say
Law & Order: we’ll say something like, ‘They’re from the Upper East Side, so tread lightly,’” he said via video-chat. “What we’re really saying is, ‘They have money and they can fight us.’ So if you go in the hood, treat them any kind of way because they can’t fight back.”Cue
Law & Order *dun dun.*The coded language used in the show, he says, is informed by the way poverty and race compound in society, and points out that Jimmy himself probably will never understand that treatment. “So I think that if somebody pulls you over, Jimmy, they know who you are, they know you could cause issues and problems. They’re gonna treat you a little different than somebody who doesn’t have a dime. And they know that there’ll be no repercussions.”This inside look into the dog-whistling used in
Law & Order comes on the heels of Ice T admitting that the show perhaps has “romanticized” the way cops are portrayed. Last month he told
Page Six, “I am wearing Gucci. Mariska [Hargitay] is wearing designer clothes. Cops can’t afford to do that, so in a way, we romanticize that job when it’s not that romantic.”[video_embed id='2004001']RELATED: Tiffany Haddish says racism is making her afraid to have children [/video_embed]He tempered that critique by asserting that the show has always tried to have balanced portrayals of Black folk. “It’s tried to be as fair as it can possibly be… You have got the Black gang bangers, but you have also got the Black judge, you’ve got the Black attorney,” he told Page Six.Ice T, who also has a new movie available for streaming now called
Equal Standard about a Black cop who is profiled by his own force when he’s undercover, said that he and his band Body Count decided to re-release the song "No Lives Matter" because of the current climate and heightened awareness outside the Black community of anti-Black racism. He explained he feels it all comes down to “perspective.”“In the song ‘No Lives Matter,’ I say it doesn’t matter what colour you are—black, brown, red, poor whites that they call ‘trash’—when it comes to the poor, nobody’s important. No lives matter.”Watch
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon weeknights at 11:35ET on CTV2.[video_embed id='2001534']BEFORE YOU GO: HBO developing Ta-Nehisi Coates book & stage show into special TV event [/video_embed]
