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‘If all lives matter, why are black people killed for just being black? Why are immigrants persecuted? Why are white people given opportunities that people of other races aren’t?’
Billie Eilish came down hard on white people championing the ‘All Lives Matter’ slogan in response to the ongoing protests in support of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement that have sparked across states in the US.
The 18-year-old vegan singer wrote a long scathing post on Instagram on Saturday to let her 63 million followers know how she felt about the ongoing situation.
She started by stating that she while tried to use her “enormous” platform to be respectful and carefully think through what and how she wanted to communicate, she needed to be explicit this time.
“If I hear one more white person say ‘All Lives Matter’ one more f*cking time, I’m going to lose my f*cking mind,” she wrote.
“No one is saying your life doesn’t matter,” she added.
“No one is saying your life is not hard. No one is saying literally anything about you.
“This is not about you.
“Stop making everything about you. You are not in need. You are not in danger.”
Black Lives Matter
Eilish went on to explain her reasons for asking people to focus on the issues of the Black community rather than downplaying it with examples.
“If your friend gets a cut on their arm are you gonna wait to give all your friends” a Band-Aid first “because all arms matter?” she asked.
Using another example, she wrote: “If someone’s house was on fire and someone is stuck in the house are you gonna make the fire department go to every other house on the block first because all houses matter?”
She answered her own question in with a resounding “No! because they don’t f**king need it.”
Continuing her rant in caps, she blasted: “Society gives you privilege just for being white.
“You can be poor, you can be struggling..and still your skin color is giving you more privilege than you even realize and nobody is saying that makes you better than anyone.
Asking a pertinent question, she wrote: “If all lives matter, why are black people killed for just being black? Why are immigrants persecuted? Why are white people given opportunities that people of other races aren’t?”
‘White f**king privilege’
The singer then highlighted the disparity between a white protestor and a black one by explaining how armed white protestors effectively violated the stay-at-home order during the coronavirus lockdown while carrying semi-automatic weapons without facing any repercussions and black protesters were being labelled “thugs” for protesting against racial injustice.
She tied the inequality to “White. F**king. Privilege.”
She ended her post stating that white privilege affected other minority communities as well, however, George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer and the ensuing protests are all about bringing the community’s years of suffering to the fore to a society, which clearly believes that black lives don’t matter.
“Right now, right in this moment, we have to address the hundreds of years of oppression of Black people,” Eilish wrote.
“The slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ does not mean other lives don’t. It’s calling attention to the fact that society clearly thinks Black lives don’t f**king matter. And they f**king do.”
‘Don’t just do nothing’
In a follow-up post, she encouraged more and more people to come out in support of the protests while advising the ones concerned for the safety of their families to adopt alternative methods to be heard such as making signs, standing on the side of the streets, chanting, shouting, etc.
Eilish added in a separate post that blackout tuesday did not mean posting a black square and remaining silent, it was a movement to “amplify the message that systemic inequality will no longer be tolerated in this country!”
She listed a number of organizations that she had donated to and urged her followers to do the same in order to “help create meaningful change!!”
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