MSNBC's Ronan Farrow claims that he can empathize with the problems of black men because his white mother, actress Mia Farrow, has "black-motheritis."
Farrow was hosting the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart on his show to discuss the shooting of unarmed Missouri teenager Mike Brown, which has led to riots in the local community and has prompted an FBI investigation.
Capehart argued that, as a black man, his mother taught him that he must go to extraordinary lengths to remain safe: "Don't run in public. Don't run with anything in your hands. Keep a discreet distance away from white women, lest you get accused of any number of things. So if there is -- if anyone is under siege, I would say it would be African-Americans, and African-American men in particular."
"You know, it resonates so much for me on a personal level," Farrow interjected, "because I grew up with a black brother--and people talk about this term, 'black motheritis'. Black mothers fearing exactly what you're talking about. My white mother had black motheritis."
Farrow explained: "My brother was a big black guy, and he'd run in the supermarket as a young teenager and she would say 'You can't do that.' That he had to dress in a different way from me because there were all these fears about maybe violence against him if he went across the street in a hoodie, if he went across the street looking a certain way."