 "Jesse Williams' BET awards speech started a twitter controversy for Justin Timberlake")
The highlight of the BET Awards on Sunday 26th was Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams being felicitated with the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award , which honors people who have tried to make a difference with their social activism. His powerful acceptance speech on race and cultural appropriation in America shook the stage and he walked away with a standing ovation. His words made such an impact that a few publications like the Washington Post are running the speech in its entirely. Here’s a look at the speech:
The actor who stars in the popular drama Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Jackson Avery has always been an activist and used his celebrity status to bring attention to his work. Williams has always been an active supporter of Black Lives Matter campaign. His documentary for the Black Lives Matter movement titled Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement has first person accounts of local activists, protesters, scholars, journalists and celebrities. He was even on the front line of protests held at Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer. The former teacher has always had his sights on getting equal rights for black people. [caption id=“attachment_2861184” align=“alignleft” width=“385”]
Justin Timberlake and Jesse Williams. Image Courtesy: Twitter[/caption] The BET acceptance speech propelled him into international stardom from being a minor TV celebrity and he even (sort of) got embroiled in a Twitter controversy that involved Justin Timberlake. Timberlake posted a tweet in which he expressed his admiration of the actor’s acceptance speech which earned the ire of twitter users who accused him of appropriating the black culture that Jesse Williams spoke about, and this escalated to a twitter users blaming him for Janet Jackson’s ruined career after the wardrobe malfunction incident of the 2004 Super Bowl.
The singer was forced to apologise on Monday for the condescending tone of a Tweet to a black journalist and maintaining “we are all the same” in light of actor Jesse Williams’ historic speech at the BET Awards on Monday.
But this didn’t stop the flood of angry tweets that are calling out to him for appropriating black culture with his music. Numerous twitter users pointed out to him how his music was written, composed and choreographed by black musicians and how he could take advantage of this because of white privilege. The overwhelming anger against him continues to flow on Twitter with tweets like these: