(AllHipHop News) Many celebrities have shared their thoughts on George Floyd, the African-American man that was killed on May 25 by white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Superstar comedian Kevin Hart spoke about the situation during a conversation with Lil Wayne’s Young Money Radio on Apple Music.
“It was conversations, you heard about it, but you never experienced it, you didn’t really know,” said Hart about racism in America. “You may have heard people say that they’ve had some incidents that were racial and where they saw blatant disrespect because of the color of their skin. But you’re like, ‘Damn, I’ve yet to really see it.'”
He continued, “Social media has enhanced it in a way to where it’s not only in our face, it’s at the point where it’s past disrespect, it’s past ignorance. It’s at a point of, ‘So what.’ They’re ‘so whating’ our culture now. [They’re saying,] ‘We’re going to do what we do and the response is, so what? The consequences don’t seem to be that severe so we’ll continue to f*cking put our feet on your neck. We’ll continue to shoot when shots don’t deserve to be fired. We’ll continue to stick, beat, grab, and manhandle your women. We’ll continue because there has yet to be a real, severe consequence.’”
Now-arrested former officer Chauvin was seen on video pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes as the 46-year-old man was handcuffed and lying face down on the street. Chauvin and three other cops involved in the incident were fired from the police force. Only Chauvin is currently facing third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges for Floyd’s death.
For six consecutive days, people across the world have taken to the streets to demonstrate against police brutality and racism in the American judicial system. Some of the protests turned violent as stores were looted and burned and law enforcement officers sprayed rubber bullets at demonstrators and news reporters.
“That word ‘looting’ gets thrown out and ‘riot’ gets thrown out, but for every action, there’s a reaction. And there’s only a matter of time before those reactions can happen,” said Hart. “I think the only way, sometimes, to grab the attention of the masses is with the reaction. That’s not to say I condone it, because I don’t. But I condone having a voice and I condone an emotion that needs to be heard and get out.”
The Jumanji: The Next Level star went on to say he will work to help pass laws that protect young black men and women. He added, “When you look at [Martin Luther] King, when you look at Malcolm X, when you look at Nat Turner, when you go back into history, there are people that said, ‘F*ck it, I got an idea.’ They ran with that idea. So in this culture today we’ve got to come up with those individuals that have ideas that can give us a change and warrant the new way of living that we’re all looking for.”