General News Tomi Lahren Criticises Jesse Williams BET Awards Speech

I agree with some of her points. Although, she seems way too angry for the points she is trying to make. Also, the Democratic party today is nothing like it was during the civil war. It's a lot more liberal, while the Republican party is a lot more conservative. Abe Lincoln wouldn't recognize the Republican party today.

The problem I have is that people seem to understand "statistics", but they pull them out of context to try to prove some point. We know blacks are disproportionately killed by police, but we fail to acknowledge why. In reality, people understand that there is a problem, but they fail to understand why there is a problem. For that, nothing gets resolved and it just leaves us hating the wrong people. It's become nothing more than a blame game (on both sides).

 

How can anybody be that stupid?
*googles her*
"Current employer: The Blaze"
That explains a lot

 

Why would she care about Super Bowl performances or BET Awards? If she's just for getting ratings and riling people up I don't like that but understand.

 

Glenn Beck TV host: I know racism exists but people of color ‘get a free pass’

 

Actually no, she just made valid points..
Her tone and anger in her voice where the problem, almost as if she wanted to incite anger. Go at it calmly and she would have made more sense instead of adding a snarky remark after each sentence.

That being said, she did make valid points that by all means are far more supported than what he said... still she approached it all wrong..
I assume her editor made the valid points and she added her own anger to it.

 

What were her valid points?

She counters the Tamir Rice comment with an appeal to aggressive criminals grabbing police officers' guns, which does happen, but that's hardly relevant to Rice, a 12-year-old with a fake gun against whom the police were not defending themselves.

Then she makes the hackneyed point about the "evil Democrats" even though her point is self-defeating considering that the Democrats used to be the more Conservative party, so the fault is still on the conservatives. Not to mention that despite all the white people fighting in the civil war, most of them were not fighting to free black people, only a handful of abolitionists were.

Nowhere in the original speech does he demand special rights nor is "whiteness" equivalent to claiming that all white people are evil. So no, she is not teeming with valid points. She is teeming with bad arguments, straw men, and needless vitriol. She may have a point that the original speech is divisive (and this guy looks white to me, sorry) but only if it was truly a condemnation of white people in general (which it did not seem to be). She also could've criticized claims of "appropriation" (which I reject on some grounds) but she abandons that in favor of the "I'm not apologizing!" defiance when there was no need for apology in the first place. There were things to criticize about Williams' speech, but she didn't do it.

 

I think she has some valid points amongst some bad ones, delivered in a riled up manner which does not help.

My own thoughts on Jesse Williams' speech, I think his intentions are good but I also think most of his points are incorrect. I'll address his points in turn:
1. He speaks of the "system created to divide" referring to institutionalised racism. Whilst yes, historically racism was deliberately incorporated into institutions (through laws), the idea that government bodies on mass a. still have such a degree of control, and b. are deliberately conspiring against black people is verging on conspiracy theory territory. Racism is present in these institutions certainly, much like any organisation of people, but I don't believe for a second it is there by willfull design.

2. He speaks of black women's role - yup, fine, nothing particularly wrong here, although there are a lot of white mother's of mixed race kids who play an incredibly important role too and are pretty invisible in these discussions

3. The idea that police only practice brutality against black populations. Absolutely untrue, there are plenty of cases of unarmed white people shot by the police. I think the discussion on police brutality and violence against black people is often labelled as down to racism (like what Jesse is doing) when this only makes it harder to tackle by masking other elements at play.

Black people committ more crime. Black activists may be uncomfortable with or deny that information but it is a fact. THAT IS NOT SAYING black people are responsible or to blame for this, or that black people are inherently mor ecriminal. No, it is saying there are issues that lead to black criminality - issues like divides in education, past segregation shoe-horning populations, poverty, lower funding in black areas etc. These need to addressed as root causes, and the longer we pretend along with the narrative "cops only kill black people because of racism", the longer we delay tackling the main causes.

I'll give another example here: gay men are more likely to get STDs. FACT. Is that offensive? Should I as a gay man scream "THAT'S A LIE!", "STOP VICTIM-BLAMING!" or "HOMOPHOBIA?!"? Orrrr....should I say, OK, that's the fact, why is that the case? In that example it isn't that gay men are bad or to blame at all, it is largely due to past oppression and laws creating such a tabboo and "underground" sex scene.

4. His idea that is offensive to talk about progress when things are still to be done. Overreacting here. I regularly talk about how much progress gay people have made, of the night and day difference between life just 70 years ago when being gay was a criminal offence - does that mean I'm complacent or think there is nothing left to do? Absolutely not.

5. His discussion on the "invention of whiteness" - I see your point Zen, that he was not referring to all white people HOWEVER his wording here is incredibly poor. On one hand he is discussing the richness of black culture and history, and then seemingly dismissing white culture as artificial or contrived ("an invention") or solely built on appropriation. ALL races appropriate other races, even the black race (hence you have a black Western TV actor wearing clothing derived from 19th century white formal-wear talking to a camera). TV is a white invention, cameras are a white invention, dress-shirts are a white invention - and he is sharing the benefits of this culture which is absolutely fine as all races and populations grow, adapt, share, contribute and borrow over time.

And besides, I think Tomi Lahren is right here on calling out the false victimhood. I would question how Jesse Williams personally feels black talent, culture and creativity is stolen and the creators "discarded" when you have entire industries like with music absolutely dominated by black artists earning astronomical sums of money, with worldwide recognition and distribution. I wouldn't suggest what he says doesn't happen in some instances, but I think it is false to make out this is a universal thing.

Now, overall I think he was overly aggressive (obviously passionate but without direction or level-headedness to back him up) and I think he made points but offered no ideas on how to address them, so ultimately aside from giving him great publicity I don't think this will really help matters - and may just lead to further division ala the BLM movement.

I still fail to see why she is being held to a higher standard than any other rapper.

Firstly, modern day Hip-hop as we know it is not a solely black creation. Black people do not "own" hip-hop (anymore than white people own poetry or classical music), and therefore they do not have the authority to grant permission for white artists to take part - no one does.

Secondly, why should she be criticised for not fashioning herself as a black civil rights campaigner when there are so many black artists not only failing to do the same, but actually attacking other black people's and people in general's rights (in creating songs that demean, objectify others and women, advocate violence and criminality etc etc) that go without criticism?

Thirdly, speaking of Iggy Azaelea, why do we ignore the act here that she herself has suffered racist abuse from the black community (see the repeated attacks on her being called "Igloo" because of her skin colour), before criticising her not for being racist, but for simply keeping her mouth shut? If she'd have called a black artist a derogatory name based on their skin colour quite rightly it would be labelled racist, why do we ignore this when it happens to her?

 

I applaud his speech. It was very well executed and I agree with everything that was said by ZenMusic on this subject matter.