Beyoncé and Rihanna have both issued statements regarding the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests taking place in cities across the US.
“We need justice for George Floyd,” Beyoncé said in a video message posted to Instagram on Friday night. “We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. 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,” Beyoncé continued. “No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away.”
Beyoncé went on to encourage her fans to sign a series of petitions demanding more charges be brought against Derek Chauvin and the other police officers involved in Floyd’s death.
Meanwhile, in her own Instagram post, Rihanna directed her outrage at Chauvin, referring to him as a “bigot, murderer, thug, pig, bum.” She asked, “If intentional MURDER is the fit consequence for ‘drugs’ or ‘resisting arrest’….then what’s the fit consequence for MURDER???!”
Read Rihanna’s comments in full:
“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???!
Last night, Killer Mike delivered an impassioned plea to residents of Atlanta asking them to resist the urge to vandalize property. Meanwhile, Lil Wayne believes “if we want to place the blame on anybody [for Floyd’s murder], it should be ourselves.”
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A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on May 29, 2020 at 8:10pm PDT
