Last Sunday on the BET awards, Jesse Williams was awarded the Humanitarian award for his work with Ferguson and for the Black Lives Matter movement. He gave an amazing speech that addressed the issues affecting the black community including police brutality, our impact on popular culture, and the financial stability that we give America.
I was so moved by his speech because I had hoped that it would light a fire in the black community and help them to wake up and see what is actually happening to us. And for a minute, everybody was united with a new sense of pride. People whom I had spoken to about the problems that black people faced seemed like they were finally on the same page as me. His speech was all over social media and was praised by the older generations and millennials. In fact, people were comparing him to a modern day civil rights activist. I thought that we would finally be able to make some progress and make changes to our community.
However, that hope was short lived. In the next couple of days the black community was talking about other things related to the speech instead of the speech itself. The divide between the light-skinned and dark-skinned had tainted the speech all together. People were comparing him to people who had been talking about improving the black community for years, such as, David Banner and Kendrick Lamar. They were questioning if he only won the award because he was mixed and had pretty eyes, completely ignoring that it was a humanitarian award and not a beauty pageant. Or forgetting that he had put in activist work and put his career in jeopardy by even making the speech. Instead of glorifying the speech and allowing it to awaken the black pride within all of us and create a a spark that would encourage us to fight for our rights and demand actual freedom and the recognition we deserve in creating popular culture, black people were stuck on the fact that he’s half white.
Honestly, nobody should have a problem with him having a white mother because despite this he still acknowledged black women and the work that they do for the black community. Furthermore, at least he accepts his black half. There are many people that do not accept their blackness and are ashamed of it. For example, in the movie “Imitation of Life” one of the characters literally abandoned her black mother and refused to acknowledge her blackness for her entire life because she could pass as a white person.
If Jesse Williams can own his blackness then we should too. We should not let the knowledge of him having a white mother take away from the powerful words of his speech. He is an activist and he uses his platform as an actor to speak on matters that are important to the black community. There are other black entertainers, with two black parents, that have the same platform and opportunity to ignite change and do nothing. Yet we praise them and support them without question. How about we support Jesse Williams the way he supports the black community. Let’s fight for our freedom!
Listen to his speech and be inspired here.
