I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 14th.

The defense is now presenting its case in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin,

accused of murdering George Floyd. They're expected to present for a very short time compared to the prosecution,

ending perhaps as early as tomorrow. And of course, the Minneapolis area and the country as a whole

are also reeling now from another police killing in the area of another unarmed black man,

20-year-old Dante Wright, after a traffic stop.

One of the closest observers of the Chauvin trial and of race and justice in America overall right now

is Paul Butler, Georgetown University Law Professor, former prosecutor, now a Washington Post contributing columnist and an MSNBC contributor, as well as author of the book, Chokehold Policing Black Men.

Some of you know that Paul is doing a series of monthly appearances here for the early part of the Biden presidency to assess his racial justice initiatives.

But for today's appearance,

we will talk more about these cases. He also wrote a really interesting Washington Post column yesterday called how toxic masculinity helped kill George Floyd. Paul, we always appreciate it. Welcome

back to WNYC. Hey, Brian, it's great to be with you.

Can we start on your column? What do you mean in this context by the term toxic masculinity?

Everybody focuses on race, and that's appropriate. You cannot overstate the impact of

anti-Black bias and structural systemic discrimination on policing

in the United States. But gender matters too. Often cop machismo leads to what one legal scholar

describes as who's the man contest between people of color and the police?

There's language reference in the context of toxic masculinity

that could have affected George Floyd's mental health

in the way police spoke to Floyd in a prior arrest.

Would you tell that story?

George Floyd was not a macho dude.

...