Gayle King Is 'Worried' for Her Son's Safety: 'Welcome to Being Black in America' (Video)

Gayle King is opening up about her fears as a mother amid global protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

The 65-year-old broadcast journalist joined The Talk co-hosts on Thursday (June 4) to discuss her reporting of George Floyd‘s murder, which she cried about on-air while reporting.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Gayle King

“It brings back memories of that day, because at the time we didn’t even know his name. We couldn’t even give him the dignity of his name. He was just a black man underneath the car. All we had seen was the knee on this neck and that was hard enough to see,” she explained.

“I start thinking about all kinds of things about that video. That’s what’s making me so emotional, that his last words were ‘Mom,’ ‘Mama.’ This is what’s getting me…it goes to the primal instinct that we all have, because your mother is your ultimate protector and his mother died two years ago. We didn’t know that at the time. When I got emotional, I didn’t know that. But we know that now.”

She went on to reflect on her own son, Will.

“My son is 33 years old, and I’m worried about him, saying, ‘Will, please don’t walk Scott [his dog], please don’t take him for long walks, everything is so volatile. He lives in the Santa Monica area, close to there, so he can hear the police choppers and he can hear the sounds of the city. And Santa Monica as you know is a very affluent town…but I’m worried about him walking his frickin’ dog…I worry for him being a black man, period.”

“I worry a lot about his safety. Welcome to being black in America. This is not new,” she added.

Here are resources to help support the Black Lives Matter cause.

Watch her explain…