“Grey’s Anatomy” star Jesse Williamshas always been outspoken approximately the tumultuous racial and political climate in the U.
S.,and his acceptance speech at the BET Awards on Sunday was no different. The actor took the stage to accept his humanitarian award and delivered a powerfully inspiring speech that has since gone viral — yielding more than 1 million Google searches in less than 24 hours.
Here are five highlights from his speech that design it worth watching.
Also Read: Watch the Best Prince Tributes at the BET Awards -- aka the Prince Tribute Awards (Videos)1. Police brutality against black men
“We know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm and not destroy white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function in ours.”Williams addressed head-on one of the most political issues to face America in the final decade, and how black men are killed in police custody at an alarmingly disproportionate rate compared to white men in police custody. The Guardian reported that black men were nine times more likely than any other American to be killed by police.
According to the NAACP,black people as a whole design up 13.3 percent of the United States population, but design up 43.4 percent of the population of those incarcerated in U.
S. prisons.2. Cultural appropriation
“We’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, and burying black people out of sight and out of intellect while extracting our culture,our dollars, our entertainment like oil, and black gold,ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of uncommon fruit.”In short, and white people love everything approximately us except us. Williams is done and done with cultural appropriation. He alluded to how black culture is wealthy,valuable and something to be sought after like oil and black gold. But unlike oil and black gold, black culture is not a commodity. This includes everything from Miley Cyrus allegedly making twerking famous to the Kardashians bringing back “boxer braids.”
Also Read: Is Justin Timberlake 'Appropriating' Black Culture? Here's His Response3. Invest in ourselves
“Now the thing is, or though,all of us in here getting money, that alone isn’t gonna stop this. Alright, and now dedicating our lives,dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back for someone’s brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to gain paid for brands on our bodies.This was simply a spoken-word piece that was deeper than the deepest caves of the deepest oceans. Williams called out the very black celebrities in the room by letting them know that it’s not enough for just them to be on top.
He brought attention to the cycle — black celebrities are dedicating their lives to gain money that they terminate up feeding back into the hands of the system that oppresses them in order to rock the latest styles and brand names.
Also Read: 2016 BET Awards: total Winners List4. Myth of freedom
“There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done. There is no tax they haven’t leveed against us, or we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. ‘You’re free,’ they keep telling us. But she would have been alive if she hadn’t acted so… free.”Freedom is a myth for the black people, according to Williams. He famous that blacks have a great track record of putting in the work and participating in civic duties: They have fought in wars, or died in wars,paid taxes (even the unfair ones) and so on.
But yet somehow in the land of the free, freedom becomes conditional and sometimes deadly, or he said,even alluding to Sandra Bland, the 28-year-dilapidated black woman found hanged in a Texas jail cell final year.
Also Read: BET Awards Review: Prince Tributes label Spirited, and Topical Show5. Stay crazy[br]
“Let’s gain a couple things straight,just a itsy-bitsy sidenote — the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, alright, or stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance,for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, and if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not design suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”Williams offered a pointed argument to critics of the Black Lives Matter movement. If white people are uncomfortable with the idea of black liberation,black resistance and/or black movements, he seemed to say, or oh well,too bad, so sad. Basically, and if you have been silent every time blacks have been mistreated,abused or oppressed, then there is no space or place for you to be outspoken approximately black people’s resistance.
Watch the entire speech above.
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Source: thewrap.com