Beyonce and Rihanna demand justice for George Floyd
Rihanna and Beyonce have spoken out on the killing of George Floyd who died earlier this week during a brutal arrest in Minnesota, United States.
George Floyd, who is an African-American man, died on May 25, 2020, when Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; 2 minutes and 53 seconds of which occurred after Floyd became unresponsive, according to the criminal complaint filed against Chauvin. Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the road, while Chauvin had his knee on his neck.
Beyonce in a video shared on Instagram appealed to her fans not to ‘normalise’ what happened, and hold people accountable for their actions.
“We need justice for George Floyd. We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalise this pain. I’m not only speaking to people of colour. If you’re white, black, brown, or anything in between, I’m sure you feel hopeless by the racism going on in America right now.”
She continued:
“No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of colour as less than human. We can no longer look away. George is all of our family in humanity. He’s family because he’s a fellow American. There have been too many times that we’ve seen these violent killings and no consequences. Yes, someone has been charged but justice is far from being achieved.”
Rihanna in a lengthy post shared on her Instagram page along with a George Floyd said that she had stayed away from social media just to avoid the “blood-curdling” cry of George Floyd begging for his life when he died:
“For the last few days, the magnitude of devastation, anger, sadness I’ve felt has been overwhelming to say the least! Watching my people get murdered and lynched day after day pushed me to a heavy place in my heart! To the point of staying away from socials, just to avoid hearing the blood curdling agony in George Floyd’s voice again, begging over and over for his life!!! The look of enticement, the pure joy and climax on the face of this bigot, murderer, thug, pig, bum, Derek Chauvin, haunts me!! I can’t shake this! I can’t get over an ambulance pulling up to an arrest, a paramedic checking a pulse without removing the very thing that’s hindering it! Is this that fucking normal??? If intentional MURDER is the fit consequence for “drugs” or “resisting arrest”….then what’s the fit consequence for MURDER???! #GeorgeFloyd #AhmaudArbery #BreonnaTaylor”