For those of you who watched the BET Awards on Sunday, June 26th, I hope you were able to witness the incredible acceptance speech Jesse Williams gave after receiving the BET Humanitarian Award. And if you did not see it, then you need to get online right now and look for it because everyone needs to hear it. By the end of his speech, I was literally moved to tears.
The speech that Jesse Williams gave called for action from everyone, of course, but I feel like it is the celebrities, those who have the position, money and power to influence the most change, that should have paid the most attention. In fact, I wish everyone in the audience had a notepad and took notes as Jesse Williams spoke because this man spoke pure, unadulterated knowledge. I believe that tonight he truly made himself a model of who modern celebrities should aspire to be.
The one line that Jesse Williams spoke that really haunted me in the most positive sense is when he said "the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander." My jaw dropped when these beautiful words left this beautiful man's mouth. I instantly remembered all of the times I was expected to calmly explain privilege to my white classmates, I remembered when the black community was asked not to riot in the wake of the Charleston shooting, I remembered being told my thoughts were too revolutionary by those who see no reason to change the way things are. I remembered.
And then when I thought that Jesse Williams had reached the maximum level of realness one could reach in one given moment he went on to say this:
“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil -- black gold! -- ghettoizing and demeaning our creations and stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.
Words like these, strong and graceful, aggressive and unapologetic, truthful and woke, are words similar to those that I assume were spoken in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Movement. These are words that enlighten, that enrage, that mobilize. He speaks about the invention of whiteness, born to justify slavery, that continues to enslave us today. He speaks about the merciless killing of black bodies. He talks about the endless appropriation of black culture. He talks about the exploitation of black people by the industry and he does all of this so fluidly and with such command that I literally had no words. From the comfort of my room all I could do was clap as the tears streamed down my face because I thought that if there are more people like Jesse Williams out there then maybe we will overcome.
The final thing that I will mention from Jesse Williams' speech is this gem: "This award is also for the black women in particular who have spent their lives nurturing everyone before themselves -- we can and will do better for you." This truly touched me deep down in my soul.
There are far too many black men who do not appreciate, empower and love our black women and this has become too evident, especially on Twitter. Black women work too hard to be disrespected like that by our own when we gave you life! Almost every black woman I have met starting with my own mother and sister have put everyone, their family, children and husbands before themselves, working themselves to the bone. Black men and young black women, we owe it to our mothers, to our grandmothers, to our aunties, to any black woman who ever took care of us, loved us, wanted better for us to do better, to go farther, to bring change. Black women are one of the most disrespected and forgotten groups in this country and it is high time we put an end to this.
Everyone needs to take a moment right now and watch Jesse Williams' full speech. And any time you forget why you fight, why you are justified in your anger, why you have to be the change, watch this speech again. And again. And again. And again.
