Mensa: Timberlake doesn’t support Black culture
It started with a tweet and ended with one.
Following the controversy on Justin Timberlake’s Twitter response to Jesse Williams’ speech during the BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards, Vic Mensa spoke out about the issue. Mensa said Timberlake is not showing any support in times of struggle even though the black culture helped him a lot in the industry. Mensa appeared on The Nightly
Show with Larry Wilmore as part of the round-table discussion. The rapper said: “Our problem here is that Timberlake himself, you know, is definitely benefiting from using black culture of his sound, his dance moves, his dancers, and blowing up of it. But if you roll down Timberlake’s Twitter for the past two years, which I just did, you see nothing that supports black people when it’s more difficult, when there’s a struggle.”
“With everything that’s going on and everybody that’s been killed by police on camera in the last couple of years, there’s no #BlackLivesMatter, there’s no ‘praying for Baltimore,’ there’s no ‘praying for Flint,’ you
know, because that’s a dangerous subject for him to touch. And we’re not feeling him being down when it’s beneficial to him and turning a blind eye when it could be dangerous.”
Later, when it was asked if Timberlake’s comments was Twitter beef, Mensa said, “Twitter is just representing what people are thinking. That’s where we can stream... People are tired at this point of just being used.”
Mensa later clarified on Twitter that he didn’t mean to take a jab on Timberlake during his interview.
“My statements on @TheNightlyShow were not to bash Justin Timberlake. I was just shedding some light on the idea of cultural appropriation,” Mensa clarified in a bid to stop any implication of starting a Twitter war with his fellow musical artist. His statements were prompted by
Grey’s Anatomy actor Williams’ fiery and well-applauded speech about black culture during the BET awards last June 26. Following the speech, Timberlake tweeted a message of support to Williams.
But then people on Twitter started asking Timberlake if his support meant he would stop appropriating black culture, after which the singer became defensive. Timberlake later apologized. (