Vic Mensa appeared on “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore.” He was part of a roundtable discussion about the controversy stemming from Justin Timberlake’s tweets in response to Jesse Williams’ powerful speech on racism at the BET Awards last weekend.
Mensa opened up the discussion by touching on the issues he had with Timberlake’s comments. In particular, he called out the singer’s history of inaction:
"Our problem here is that Justin Timberlake is definitely benefiting from using black culture for his sound, his dance moves, his dancers, and blowing up off of it. But if you roll down Justin Timberlake’s Twitter over the last couple of years, you see nothing that supports black people when it’s more difficult, when there’s a struggle. There’s no #BlackLivesMatter; there’s no “praying for Baltimore;” there’s no “praying for Flint,” because that’s a dangerous subject for him to touch. And we’re not feeling him being down when it’s beneficial to him, and turning a blind eye when it could be dangerous."
Mensa closed off the discussion saying, “Sit down until you show us you care. Don’t tell us **** unless you show us you care.”
I have no idea why my last thread was closed. It had a proper source and this is a major celebrity news story that's continually growing and also affects an entire community. In any case, I gave two sources this time.
What do you think about this continually growing brutal backlash Justin Timberlake is receiving?
He's never been in this much hot water. As I stated before, the Black community is definitely done supporting him.
still alive ✔ @VicMensa
My statements on @TheNightlyShow were not to bash Justin timberlake. I was just shedding some light on the idea of cultural appropriation
6:09 PM - 30 Jun 2016
You guys, PLEASE support my favs new music. He released an EP earlier this month about the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality and it's amazing.
EXPLICIT VERSION | |
CLEAN VERSION | |
He also released a song earlier this week titled 'Free Love' featuring Le1f, Halsey, Lil B & Malik Yusef where he shows his support for the LGBT community. Earlier this week on Instagram, he said he didn't really understand the LGBT community until someone in his family came out as queer. Here's the song:
The idea of cultural appropriation is a ridiculous. lol
No, it's not. Educate yourself. If you want to take from a culture, be ready to give your support to that culture when its people are targeted and systematically oppressed. Taking from a minority culture while people of your race continue to oppress people from said culture to make sure that they aren't able to reap the rewards of their own culture is as good as stealing. It's not ****ing rocket science.
I hate it when people backtrack on their comments.
He didn't backtrack. He's just just trying to be civil so the conversation is focused on his
statements on Timberlake's inaction and appropriation, which is all true. He's a smart Black guy.