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An anonymous reader sent me a blistering response to Jesse Williams' speech on BET, and asked if I would publish it. I said yes, but thought nothing of it until I came across more information about what happened. I don't watch Black Entertainment Television, I am not interested in watching the network, and I have always seen it as kind of racist in its own right. You've heard the rebuttals, I am sure. "What if there was a White Entertainment Television? Why is one racist, and the other is not?"
The answer I get is that "Only white people are racist." Never mind that the history of slavery knows no color and no geography. Never mind that Muslims still practice slavery. Never mind that the first slave owner in the history of the English Colonies on official record was a black man (Antonio Johnson) and he owned two white slaves, and one black slave. Never mind that not a single American alive today has ever experienced the slavery that existed in The South because it is now a part of history, is behind us, and the issues surrounding slavery were addressed by a war where over 600,000 people died.
I have no stomach for blatant racism, and from what I have read, Jesse Williams' speech was about as racist as they get. The accusation of racism, in my opinion, is usually a cheap shot by someone who is too uninformed to come up with real facts. In the case of Williams' speech (as he flashed his blue eyes he got from his white parent), it was blatant racism.
Before I get to my reader's thoughts about Jesse Williams' speech, I want to give you a few other words. . . from actress Stacey Dash.
The actress, ever since coming out as a republican in liberal left dominated Hollywood, has received her share of criticism form the liberal left, and racist accusations from blacks who consider her a "sell-out." Like me, she was not happy with Jesse Williams’ speech at the BET Awards last Sunday.
In a blog post on Wednesday, the 49-year-old bashed Williams’ speech, calling the entire BET network racist.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: BET is keeping racism and segregation alive and this past Sunday’s awards show proves it,” Dash writes. “Particularly the speech given by Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, whose tirade after receiving the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award for his black activism was nothing short of an attack on white people.”
“You’ve just seen the perfect example of a HOLLYWOOD plantation slave!” Dash continues. “Sorry, Mr. Williams. But the fact that you were standing on that stage at THOSE awards tells people you really don’t know what your [sic] talking about. Just spewing hate and anger.”
Dash took issue with the 34-year-old actor’s words criticizing those speaking out against the Black Lives Matter movement.
“The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, all right? Stop with all that,” Williams said on Sunday. “If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest – if you have no interest in equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”
“You my man are just like everyone else hustling to get money,” Dash responds. “But your cognitive dissidents has you getting it from THAT BYSTANDER whom YOU DON’T NEED. Yes. BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION is WHITE OWNED.”
Dash also responded to Williams’ words on cultural appropriation.
Williams said, “We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, 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, then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is, though, just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.”
The Clueless actress says it’s actually Williams who’s “ghetto-izing” black culture.
“That chip on the shoulders of people like you will weigh you down and keep you from flying free,” Dash writes. “But true freedom is never free. You have to know how to fly. If anyone is making you feel this way it’s you. Living in a psychological prison of your own making. If anyone is GHETTO-IZING anyone, it’s people like you letting the BETs and other media outlets portray us in stereotypes.”
“GET over yourself and get on with it!” she adds.
As I wrote earlier, Stacey Dash is not the only person incensed by what Jesse Williams had to say as he accepted an award on BET. Here's my reader's rant:
This is a rebuttal to Jesse Williams' speech on BET. Mr. Williams just who in the hell do you think you are Dr Martin Luther King? I think not! Your name shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as his. I'm a 50 year old white male and you sir should give back that award you so wrongly received for being a racist hypocrite. Your father is black and your mother is white. The nerve of you! You have single handedly added another dark cloud to the unity of this country. You might as well start promoting Isis. Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but your speech you gave just might be how Hitler and Stalin got their start. Mobilize people might the exact words used. Do you really know what its like to be black? .Maybe your father or grandparents or great grandparents do, but not you, I think. You talk about mobilizing against the system, the same system that let you be on the platform you're grandstanding on now. You, sir, take what you can from the very same system like an acting part on television which allows you the benefits most Americans will never see. Blacks have helped build this great country, hard working honest blacks - but the black man has also helped tear it down along with other races. The only correct thing you said was about black mother's and grandmother's and great grandmothers who have raised honest hard working people with morals and values that represent the greatness of this country while some black fathers are busy being pimps and players that so many think they are. Black people have come a long way from slavery. What their ancestors endured is incredible, but to say you're treated unfairly is a complaint all races live with. At present time we have a black President in office if you haven't notice, and your race has their own television network and awards show. If the whites hosted an all white awards show the blacks would be up in arms! Blacks have great jobs throughout this country, government and DMV type jobs that I myself have applied for, but apparently was under-qualified. Blacks already dominate professional sports and make millions doing it. I gladly say you couldn't see a descent sporting event without a black athlete playing and if you want a good laugh in my opinion black comedians are the funniest. There will always be something to complain about, but to say blacks are always being mistreated? Well, get in line with all the other races or get on a plane and find a new country or start your own somewhere else. Blacks can be President of the United States or a Hip Hop mogul or sports athlete millionaire's but you will always be under-employment as well as myself of the powerful Whites and Jews who own those sporting teams and run this Nation. That, sir, will never change. The powerful won't allow it. The rich get richer, including rich blacks, but the powerful will always keep the power. You talk about the deaths of blacks at the hands of law enforcement I say the hell with those people. Plenty of people have died in wars fighting for this country, not stealing from it. If the police say freeze and put down the weapon, and you don't. . . you deserve to get shot dead no matter what race you are if you don't comply. You're not the only race who's been wronged before so if you want to mobilize, why don't you mosey on down to the homeless shelter or children's hospital and do some real work where all lives matter! Hypocrite. Keep your opinions to yourself, you're too young to have witnessed much of anything, anyway.
Editor's Note: that was a rant from a reader, not a writing by any member of the staff of Political Pistachio.
After Jesse Williams' speech, Justin Timberlake tweeted that he was inspired, and then was attacked for daring to say something. . . after all, he's white. Timberlake later apologized.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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