Following Jesse Williams’ powerful Humanitarian Award acceptance speech at the BET Awards, Sunday night, an “inspired” Justin Timberlake’s tweet was met with backlash.
Many felt the artist was tone deaf to the message Williams had delivered, particularly his critique of the perception of Black culture in the entertainment industry.
“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,” said Williams towards the end of his speech.
Jesse Williams Gave the Most Inspiring Acceptance Speech At the BET Awards – Read It Here
Timberlake, who felt the need to continue defending himself, then tweeted that “we are all one.” An idea that resembles the offense #BlackLivesMatter met when people started tweeting #AllLivesMatter.
I forget this forum sometimes… I was truly inspired by @iJesseWilliams speech because I really do feel that we are all one… A human race
Giving up, Timberlake exited the conversation by tweeting an apology, “I apologize to anyone that felt I was out of turn. I have nothing but love for you and all of us,” said the former boy band member.
