By now you must have heard the amazing and inspiring words that came out of the mouth of Jesse Williams during his #BETAwards acceptance speech this past Sunday night.

He challenged racism, called for direct action and told artists they should speak up. He started by saying “A system built to divide, impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do,”.

It was nothing short of inspirational. The speech is a MUST WATCH (see it here).

BUT, Jesse didn’t stop there. After the speech he went to the media room and had even more wisdm to impart.

Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say:

“You have artists figuring out ways to be activists and use social activism in their art, and you have folks in social activism figuring out ways to bring in art and music in their activism,”
“What I’d like to see us do is return to a space where it’s okay for folks to be proud and outwardly Black in public and not have to feel like we have to be safe to live in white spaces, or to make everyone else comfortable when we’ve spent centuries being uncomfortable,” Williams said. “People are getting more comfortable being political. We live here, we pay taxes, we should be able to talk about it.”

“Just because I can dunk or act doesn’t mean I have to shut the hell up about issues that actually affect me and my people. We cannot allow them to extract from the Black community the best and brightest in a particular genre of expression that makes money for white corporations, and then separate us from the rest of the people,” he said, still fired up. “People are out here suffering. People are out here poor, and abandoned, and unsupported, and just because we get to be here tonight doesn’t mean that we’ve made it. We ain’t made it.”

R E S P E C T.

We need to stand up and listen to this man and people like him.