Watch Yvette Nicole Brown explain Black Lives Matter perfectly on Friday Night in With the Morgans

Friday Night in With the Morgans is a show that likes to have fun, and fun it does have as hosts Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton welcome their friends both famous and local. But the AMC talk show has never shied away from discussing deep and personal issues either, dating all the way back to the very first episode where Walking Dead star Christian Serratos talked openly about the importance of couples counseling.

So it should come as no surprise that the pair would want to converse about the movement that has been taking place against systemic racism in our country, and converse they shall on Friday night’s edition with the help of Fear the Walking Dead’s Colman Domingo and frequent Talking Dead guest Yvette Nicole Brown.

In this exclusive clip from Friday’s episode, Brown is asked to explain her thoughts on those who counter the Black Lives Matter slogan with All Lives Matter. “I think I would ask, why are you so upset?” begins Brown. “Why does it bother you so much? Because the thing about it is, talking about racism, learning about racism, finding out racism exists is not as bad as enduring racism.”

Brown then goes on to theorize that some of the hostile reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement may come from people who simply don’t know how else to react. “It’s kind of like waking a sleepwalker right now,” Brown says. “When you wake up someone that’s sleepwalking, it’s a little violent sometimes because they’re confused, they don’t know where they are and they’re trying to get their bearings. And I feel like the people that are reacting that way, they can’t get their bearings.”

Brown then goes on to offer a vivid example to illustrate why people who don’t think there is a problem with race in this country may feel that way because they have never been forced to approach it from a different vantage point: “This is the way I try to explain privilege to people that can’t understand it. I’m 5-foot-2. Always been 5-foot-2. I don’t know what it’s like to be a regular size human being. When I get on a plane, I stand up with no problem, I’ve never hit my head on a door frame in my life. But there are people that are 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-whatever, and every time they go through a small door, they’re checking that door frame. Every time they get on a plane, they are ducking down. They are suffering in certain spaces because of their height.”

Brown then puts herself in the position of the privileged party: “Now what would it be like for me, who is short and privileged in that area, to go, ‘It can’t be that bad for you. Surely it’s not that bad for you. What do you mean it’s hard to walk through certain doors? I don’t have a problem walking through any door. So why are you fussing? I just think you should shut up and not stop being so…’ How would that feel if you had struggles that that little Lilliputian person couldn’t understand, and then they tried to tell you what you should be upset about? That’s exactly what it is.”

The bottom line, according to Brown, is, “If someone tells you that something hurts, something is difficult for them, if you have not experienced it, you really don’t know. So maybe listen and have some empathy for them.”

It’s a pretty powerful point, and just one moment in a much larger discussion on race that will take place in a special one-hour edition of Friday Night in With the Morgans. Watch more from Brown in the video above, and then tune in at 10 p.m. ET/PT to see the entire conversation on AMC.

To help combat systemic racism, please consider donating to these organizations:

• Campaign Zero, which is dedicated to ending police brutality in America through research-based strategies.
• Color of Change, which works to move decision makers in corporations and government to be more responsive to racial disparities.
• Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal services to people who have been wrongly convicted, denied a fair trial, or abused in state jails and prisons.

Related content:

• Cops TV series canceled after 31 years in wake of protests
• Netflix adds Black Lives Matter as a new genre after The Help concerns
• Trevor Noah reflects on George Floyd's death and the logic of looting in heartfelt message