Steve Harvey Reflects On COVID’s Effect On Police Protests

Steve Harvey is giving his take on the protests against racial justice and police brutality amidst one of the worst pandemics in American history.

PEOPLE provided a first look at Wednesday’s (January 20) episode of STEVE on Watch.  The host shared the lessons he taught his own sons about police brutality, specifically mentioning Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.

“In light of what’s happened with Floyd and Arbery, and because of COVID, I think for the first time, the world was sitting still,” he said. “Nobody was on spring break, nobody was at happy hour, nobody was at work, nobody was on vacation and the world was frozen.” 

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He continued: “They actually saw it over and over and over, what it looks like and what actually happens to a lot of people, and I think for the first time ever, non-African Americans — more so than I’ve ever seen before — have joined in to protest and be outraged of what’s happening to people of color.”

Harvey explained what he considered the “upside” in the ongoing fight to dismantle racism.

“I think that has been the thing that we’ve needed for a long time,” he says. “We needed someone else to be outraged other than us, and for the first time I’m seeing so many non-African Americans just sit there and go, ‘Wait a minute, what? You did what to this man?'”

He added: “We now have found out that the world has a lot of allies. There’s still bad people out there, but it’s a lot of really great people out there who, once they are really aware and looking at the situation, can see the injustice as it unfolds.”

Watch the full clip below.