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Friday, March 29, 2024

Jesse Williams awakened Black consciousness, now we must deliver

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Jesse Williams, the handsome actor who garnered millions of fans for his portrayal as Dr. Jackson Avery on “Grey’s Anatomy,” recently attracted a legion of other fans for something far more powerful and political.

During the 2016 BET Awards that aired Sunday night, Williams received the Humanitarian Award and gave a commanding speech that invigorated a sense of historical and present-day consciousness that kept the audience on their feet throughout his remarks.

Williams, who was an educator prior to acting, commented on social justice issues that should easily awaken the spirit of advocacy in all of us – the key however, is that we continuously remember the importance of being advocates. It does us no good to give Williams standing ovations and comments on Facebook and Twitter on how great his speech was if we don’t use his words as motivation to right the wrongs of this world and campaign against injustice.

Williams’ words call-out the oppressors of our time, but his words also take aim at those who focus on the wrong things such as brand name clothing and material possessions.

I am sharing the full transcript of Williams’ speech in hopes it will foster a renewed level of consciousness that increases our motivation to speak against the ills of this country, to act on every form of maltreatment against the disenfranchised in a rational but necessary way, and to do something that will help this country become more equal and just in its treatment of all people.

“Now, this award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country. The activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do. All right? It’s kind of basic mathematics. The more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize.

“Now, this is also in particular for the Black women who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.

“Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we’re going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function in ours.

“Now, (standing ovation) I got more, y’all.

“Yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday. So, I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich.

“Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better to live in 2012, than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Darrien Hunt.

“Now, the thing is, though, all of us in here getting money that alone isn’t going to stop this. All right? Now dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back. To put someone’s brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid with brands for our bodies. 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’s no tax they haven’t levied against us. And we pay all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. You’re free, they keep telling us, but she would have been alive if she hadn’t acted so free.

“Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter but, you know what, though, the hereafter is a hustle. We want it now. And let’s get a couple of things straight here, just a little side note. The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job. All right, stop with all that. 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 in equal rights for Black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

“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, the thing is, that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real. Thank you.”

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