“We’re not feeling him being down when it’s beneficial to
him, and turning a blind eye when it could be dangerous.”
Last night, Vic Mensa appeared on “The Nightly
Show With Larry Wilmore.” He was part of a round table discussion about the
controversy stemming from Justin Timberlake’s tweets in response to
Jesse Williams’ powerful speech on racism at the BET Awards last
weekend. Timberlake initially tweeted out support for Williams, but then
got heavily criticized when he responded “we are the same” to a
journalist who asked him to reflect on his own cultural appropriation (a major
topic in Williams’ speech); Timberlake later apologized.
Mensa opened up the discussion by touching on the
issues he had with Timberlake’s comments. In particular, he called out the
singer’s history of inaction:
Our problem here is
that Justin Timberlake himself–you know–is definitely benefiting from using
black culture for his sound, his dance moves, his dancers, and blowing up off
of it. But if you roll down Justin Timberlake’s Twitter for the past two
years, which I just did, you see nothing that supports black people when it’s
more difficult, when there’s a struggle. With everything that’s going on, and
everybody that’s been killed by police on camera in the last couple of years,
there’s no #BlackLivesMatter; there’s no “praying for Baltimore;” there’s no
“praying for Flint,” you know, because that’s a dangerous subject for him to
touch. And we’re not feeling him being down when it’s beneficial to him, and
turning a blind eye when it could be dangerous.
Mensa closed off the discussion saying, “Sit down until
you show us you care. Don’t tell us shit unless you show us you care.” In a tweet
earlier today, Mensa clarified that he was not trying to “bash” the singer; he
“was just shedding some light on the idea of cultural appropriation.” Watch the
“Nightly Show” panel and see Mensa’s tweet below.
Source: Pitchfork.
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