Billie Eilish has shared an impassioned message about white privilege amid the ongoing
protests over
police killings of Black people.
The Grammy-winning
Singer told her nearly 65 million followers over the weekend that she was “gonna lose my fucking mind” if another white person insisted that “all lives matter,” a phrase that is used to invalidate the specific injustices inflicted upon Black communities.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Billie wrote on
Instagram. “No one is saying your life doesn’t matter. No one is saying your life is not hard. No one is saying literally anything at all about you...
“All you MFs do is find a way to make everything about yourself. This is not about you. You are not in need. You are not in danger.”
The clearly-frustrated singer said that she had tried to address the matter “delicately” given her platform, but her anger had boiled over in recent days. View this post on InstagramA post shared by BILLIE EILISH (@billieeilish) on May 30, 2020 at 3:31am PDTBillie continued the post for several more slides and attempted to distill the issue in child-like terms for those failing to understand the extent of structural racism.
“If your friend gets a cut on their arm are you gonna wait to give all your
Friends a bandaid first because all arms matter? NO you’re gonna help your friend because THEY are in PAIN because THEY are in need because THEY ARE BLEEDING,” she wrote.
The Bad Guy star went onto explain why “you can be poor, you can be struggling” and still benefit from white privilege.
“Nobody is saying that makes you better than anyone,” she added. “It just lets you live your life without having to worry about surviving simply because of your skin colour! You are privileged!”“If all lives matter why are black people killed just for being black?” Eilish continued, noting that white people protesting stay-at-home orders had not experienced police violence.
“Why are immigrants persecuted? Why are white people given opportunities that people of other races aren’t? The slogan #blacklivesmatter does not mean that other lives don’t. It’s calling attention to the fact that society clearly thinks black lives don’t fucking matter! And they fucking do!”
The post, which has racked up nearly five million likes, received praise from director Ava Duvernay, SZA, Trey Songz, Kehlani, Kandi Burruss and more in the comments section.
Billie joined a chorus of celebrities, including Beyoncé,
Rihanna,
Taylor Swift and
Ariana Grande, who’ve spoken out after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck, as he said he couldn’t breathe.
On Friday, Taylor Swift blasted
President Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and
racism your entire presidency” in a viral tweet.
Beyoncé demanded justice for Floyd in a video message and urged her followers to take action.
“No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away,” she said, directing her followers to various petitions. “George is all of our family in humanity. He’s our family because he’s a fellow
American.”READ MORE:
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Twitter Page Deactivated, After Backlash Over George Floyd Post