Last week BET had its annual awards show, which features a humanitarian award for those striving to better the human condition across the spectrum. This year the award went to Jesse Williams, one of the stars of ABC's hit show "Grey's Anatomy" for his outspokenness about injustices suffered by black people. Many people, like myself, applauded Williams for giving a necessary, important and powerful speech. Williams' speech spoke to me, especially when he said, "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 levied against us – and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here." This is a perfect encapsulation of everything that black people have suffered in America while waiting for equal rights. This speech spoke to people of all races everywhere and you can watch the full speech here.
One person who was not moved by Williams speech was Tomi Lahren, host of "Tomi" for The Blaze. You should watch her response before continuing this article.
Miss Lahren critiques Williams' speech for complaining about the plight of wealthy black actors and musicians, ignoring the fact that wealthy blacks still suffer from discrimination and racism. Williams also never complains in his speech about the specific plight of wealthy blacks. WIlliams actually says it's their duty to do more than just make money and never complains of their lot in life. Lahren also critiques Williams for lamenting on the death of Tamir Rice but never actually addresses why Williams was wrong for lamenting about the death of Tamir Rice or any of the names mentioned by Williams. Lahren pivots to a vague point for which she provides no evidence; she does this because she realizes she does not have a leg to stand on and that her argument is full of s***.
Lahren then goes on to weirdly point out that white people fought to free black people during the Civil War, in response to Williams saying if you do not critique our oppression do not critique our movement for liberation. Williams was speaking of specific people while Lahren acted as if he was saying all white people were disqualified from speaking about the struggle for equal rights. So it seems as if Lahren is the one race-baiting, not the inverse. Also, on Lahren's point that white people fought to free black people in the Civil War, I'm not sure if she knows this, but a lot of white people also fought to keep blacks in slavery; we called them the Confederate States of America, they were kind of responsible for the whole Civil War thing. Also on a side-note, for the love of god will people stop saying how Republicans were against slavery and Democrats were for it. While it's literally true, it lacks context, but that's for another article. Lahren also should read Ta-Nehisi Coates "Between the World and Me" as he explains the invention of whiteness and how it was created for the purpose of malfeasance far better than I can.
Lahren either purposefully twisted Williams message to get views and responses such as this or is just completely ignorant on the plight of black people and the struggles we still face in America. There's a point when Lahren asks what rights white people have that blacks don't, so I decided to name a few.
The right to ask police why we're being pulled over (Sandra Bland)
The right to sleep in our beds peacefully (Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones)
The right to play with a BB Gun (Tamir Rice, John Crawford)
And those are sadly just a few. I earnestly hope you're willfully stoking the flames for your viewership and are not seriously this ignorant.
