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”
