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After Lil Wayne and Cardi B both delivered comments on the death of George Floyd, a number of other big name musicians stepped up to share their thoughts. Killer Mike and Beyonce both made comments Friday night, with Mike begging his fellow Atlanta citizens to end the violence in his hometown, saying, “It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy.” Beyonce, on the other hand, reminded viewers in an Instagram video that justice has yet to have been fully served. “There have been too many times that we’ve seen these violent killings, and no consequences. Yes, someone’s been charged, but justice is far from being achieved.” Now Rihanna has delivered a strong message in a recent Instagram post.
Rihanna shared a picture of George Floyd to her Instagram, along with a lengthy caption that fully captured her displeasure and the overall disgust she felt in watching the video of Officer Derek Chauvin, who she called a “thug, pig, bum,” kneeling on Floyd’s neck.
For the last few days, the magnitude of devastation, anger, sadness I’ve felt has been overwhelming to say the least! Watching my people get murdered and lynched day after day pushed me to a heavy place in my heart! To the point of staying away from socials, just to avoid hearing the blood curdling agony in George Floyd’s voice again, begging over and over for his life!!! The look of enticement, the pure joy and climax on the face of this bigot, murderer, thug, pig, bum, Derek Chauvin, haunts me!! I can’t shake this! I can’t get over an ambulance pulling up to an arrest, a paramedic checking a pulse without removing the very thing that’s hindering it! Is this that fucking normal??? If intentional MURDER is the fit consequence for “drugs” or “resisting arrest”….then what’s the fit consequence for MURDER???! #GeorgeFloyd #AhmaudArbery #BreonnaTaylor
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A number of artists throughout the music industry have expressed their thoughts about the death of George Floyd and about the protests happening throughout the country. Cardi B posted a video to her Instagram page saying, “Finally, yes. Motherf*ckers are gonna hear us now,” while Lil Wayne shared his thoughts in an awkwardly-worded statement during an interview with Fat Joe. Killer Mike also voiced his anger with George Floyd’s death while reminding his fellow Atlanta citizens “not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy.” One Friday, Beyonce delivered her own message.
On a video posted on her Instagram page, Beyonce pleaded for justice for George Floyd. “We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight,” she said. “We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain. I’m not only speaking to people of color. If you’re white, black, brown, or anything in between, I’m sure you feel hopeless about the racism going on in America right now.” Beyonce also called for an end to “senseless killings of human beings” and “seeing people of color as less than human,” adding, “We can no longer look away.”
Beyonce concluded by saying that while there was an arrest in the police killing of George Floyd, justice has yet to be served. “George is all of our family, and humanity,” she said. “He’s our family because he’s a fellow American. There have been too many times that we’ve seen these violent killings, and no consequences. Yes, someone’s been charged, but justice is far from being achieved.”
Beyonce then directed viewers to her website where petitions by Change.org, Color of Change, We Can’t Breathe and NAACP can be found.
Watch the video above to hear Beyonce’s message.
Tensions have been running high throughout the country following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota on Monday. Protests began in Minnesota early last week and have spread throughout the nation, as citizens expressed their fury as well as solidarity with each other. Many protests in various cities have turned violent, including in Atlanta, which prompted one of its most prominent citizens, Killer Mike, to plead with them to bring an end to the destruction during their protests.
Joining Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and T.I. for a press conference during the protests, Killer Mike began by expressing his feelings on the death of George Floyd. “I’m mad as hell,” he said. “I woke up wanting to see the world burn yesterday, because I’m tired of seeing black men die.” Speaking about Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck, Killer Mike said, “He casually put his knee on a human being’s neck for nine minutes as he died like a zebra in the clutch of a lion’s jaw.”
“We don’t want to see one officer charged, we want to see four officers prosecuted and sentenced. We don’t want to see targets burning, we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground,” Killer Mike said later in his speech. Despite his outrage, Mike expressed disagreement with the approach of protestors and their violence.
“I am duty-bound to be here to simply say: That it is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy,” he said. “It is your duty to fortify your own house, so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization.” Killer Mike would also remind viewers that “Atlanta is not perfect. But we are a lot better than we were and we are a lot better than a lot of cities are.”
You can watch Killer Mike’s speech in the video above.
The last week was a historic one in America, filled with tragedy and rage. The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has sparked protests across the nation, leading to clashes with police that have in many cities turned violent. No one’s in a laughing mood, certainly not Jimmy Kimmel. On Friday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late night host joined a host of other celebrities, from Charles Barkley to Lil Wayne to Taylor Swift, using his platform not to distract viewers from what’s really happening but to focus on it directly.
Kimmel, who’s no stranger to making progressive pleas, spoke about how the nation tends to react to acts of police brutality in a circular manner:
Unfortunately, this is the loop we get stuck in: It goes from ‘It isn’t right to kill an unarmed man’ to ‘Well, it also isn’t right to loot and set fires and attack the police,’ to ‘But the police are attacking us, over and over, and nothing changes’ to ‘Well, that needs to be settled by the law’ to ‘But an officer of the law just killed another man,’ and so on.
The protests in response to Floyd’s death have been going on all week, starting in the South Side of Minneapolis and spreading to places like New York City, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Late Wednesday night, as riots engulfed Minneapolis, President Donald J. Trump took to Twitter, calling the protesters “thugs” and threatening that ”when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
“Our disgusting excuse for a president, Mr. Tough Guy, Donny Bonespurs, decides I know what I’ll do: I’ll makes this worse,” Kimme said. “Our president is ordering the military to shoot Americans, specifically black Americans.” He noted that Trump tried to walk it back, claiming he wasn’t threatening lives, but Kimmel wasn’t having it. “That sad thing about how much he lies is he’s not even good at it.”
Kimmel then addressed those who make up the bulk of Trump’s base:
I especially want to pose this question to older people who’ve seen this before in this country, who’ve lived this nightmare of race riots already in the ‘60s and ‘70s, ‘80s, now: Is this who you want leading us, a president who clearly and intentionally inflames violence in the middle of a riot to show how tough he is? A commander in chief who threatens to put members of our military, our National Guardsmen and -women, in the position of having to shoot a fellow American on sight? I don’t care what you are — right, left or Republican, Democrat, I can’t imagine that there are many of us who want that. Enough is enough, we’ve got to vote this guy out already.
Kimmel ended his monologue by giving his platform to someone else. He played, in its entirety, a viral video by the Nashville actor Tyler Merritt, in which he gives a monologue entitled “Before You Call the Cops.” In it, Merritt, in a close-up against a black background, tells viewers all about him: that he’s a Christian who teaches Sunday school, that he’s done goat yoga, that he knows N.W.A.’s album Straight Outta Compton as well as he knows the musical Oklahoma!, that he hates bananas. “Does any of this really matter?” Merritt then asks. “No. I just wanted you to get to know me better, before you call the cops.”
You can watch Kimmel’s monologue in the video above.
(Via Deadline)