As riots continue to rage across the country, leaders in the African-American community are stepping up to condemn the violence and ask for peace.
The most impactful statement came from Terrence Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, whose death following a police-related incident in Minneapolis sparked the protests and riots, said his brother was a “gentle giant” and wouldn’t stand for this.
“I’m outraged, too. Sometimes I get angry, I want to bust some heads, too,” Terrence told ABC News over the weekend. “I wanna get — just go crazy. But I’m here to just — My brother wasn’t about that. My brother was about peace. You’ll hear a lot of people say, he was a gentle giant.”
“You’ll see him coming over and say, ‘wow he’s a big dude,’ but then when you talk to him and he’s all about positivity, motivation. I just can’t believe he’s gone,” Terrence continued.
Rapper Lil Wayne was perhaps the most prominent voice to speak out against the violence, saying during an Instagram Live segment with fellow rapper Fat Joe that people shouldn’t blame the “entire [police] force” or an “entire race” when something like this happens.
“I think when we see these situations, I think we also have to understand that we have to get very specific,” Wayne said. “We have to get so specific and what I mean by that, we have to stop viewing it from such a broad view, meaning we have to stop placing the blame on the whole force and the whole everybody of a certain race or everybody with a badge.”
“I mean, what you gon’ do after that?” he added. “Did you actually help the person? Did you actually help the family? Did you actually go out and do something?”
In Atlanta, Georgia, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms gave an impassioned plea for rioters to “go home.”
“It’s enough,” she said during a press conference last Friday. “We are all angry. This hurts. This hurts everybody in this room. But what are you changing by tearing up a city? You’ve lost all credibility now. This is not how we change America. This is not how we change the world.”
“You are disgracing our city, you are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country,” she added. “We are better than this. We are better than this as a city. We are better than this as a country. Go home! Go home!”
Rapper Killer Mike also stepped into the fray to condemn CNN for its role in fomenting the riots.
“I love CNN, I love Cartoon Network,” the rapper said. “But, I’d like to say to CNN right now, karma’s a mother, stop feeding fear and anger every day. Stop making people feel so fearful. Give them hope.”
“I’m glad they only took down a sign and defaced a building, and they’re not killing human beings like that policeman did,” he continued. “I’m glad they only destroyed some brick and mortar and they didn’t rip a father from a son. They didn’t rip a son from a mother, like the policeman did.”
In Cincinnati, Ohio, city councilman Jeff Pastor pleaded with his community to stop encouraging kids to attack cops.
“These cops, black cops, white cops, or whatever, they did not do anything. And I’m not here to take one side or the other, but what I’m suggesting to the people of Cincinnati is that, what type of success are you going to have with attacking these people that have nothing to do with this?” Pastor asked.
“And what I’m saying is, is that you got people down here that are literally encouraging kids to attack cops. You are encouraging the kids to attack cops and they’re using Emmett Till, they’re using Martin Luther King to justify why these 14- or 15-year-old kids should be out here. These are former students of mine, you see what I’m saying?” he continued.
“If any African-American is encouraging these 14- and 15-year-old kids to be out here, they are wrong. That’s wrong. These cops didn’t do anything to George Floyd. This is wrong. I don’t give a f*** how you see it. It’s wrong,” Pastor concluded, before apologizing for swearing.
On Monday, President Donald Trump said he would deploy the National Guard to stop the riots.
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