BET Awards Denounces ‘Whiteness’

The Black Entertainment Television awards show has always been an event devoted to celebrating African-American artists, actors, and athletes. But this year, it was a Black Lives Matter night — and a not-so-impromptu rally for Hillary Clinton.

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us.”

While trophies were given out in 20 categories — Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj among the winners — the speeches and comments were politically charged, filled with allegations of “The Man” holding down blacks and calls for viewers and attendees to support the presumed Democratic nominee for president.

Never mind that there is currently a black man in the White House and that the new supposed champion of civil rights is an elderly white woman — that point was lost among the rowdy rhetoric of the night.

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil — black gold —  ghettoizing and demeaning our creations and stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit,” “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Jesse Williams said when he accepted the Humanitarian Award.

Williams first thanked his parents, pointing them out in the audience —  his father is African-American and his mother is white, of Swedish heritage. But like President Obama, whose father is black and mother is white, the actor made no mention of his biracial status as he railed against America.

“It’s kind of basic mathematics — the more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize,” he said. “If you have no interest in equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions for those who do. Sit down.”

Williams, who also starred in “The Butler,” acknowledged that everyone in the room had reached some level of success in this country, but then went on to say that was beside the point.

“The thing is, though, all of us here are getting money, [and] that alone isn’t going to stop this. Dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back to put someone’s brand on our body — when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies?”

Freedom, he said, “is conditional here.”

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7cyvm9fOJI”]

The BET website praised him as the “epitome of woke” — the phrase that surfaced in 2013 after the death of Trayvon Martin.

Williams is a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement. In October 2014, he joined protests in Ferguson, Missouri, to protest the shooting of Michael Brown. He was also an actor and executive producer of “Stay Woke,” a documentary about the movement that premiered in May.

The awards night was also used by several of the winners as an anti-Donald Trump forum.

Accepting the prize for actress, “Empire’s” Taraji P. Henson warned people who “don’t think he gonna’ win” — it was clear she meant Trump — to “think again.”

[lz_ndn video=31066908]

Tracee Ellis Ross, who hosted the show for the second time with her “Black-ish” co-star Anthony Anderson, urged viewers to register to vote.

She pointed out that “this election will be determined by single women …. Welcome to the White House, Hillary Clinton.”

Usher, who performed his new song “No Limit,” also proclaimed his feelings by wearing  his anti-Trump message on his back — a “Don’t Trump America” T-shirt.

After Beyoncé opened the show with a surprise performance, Ross and Anderson took the stage for a “Hamilton” parody. “Why does BET have us dressed like the people in ‘Roots’?” asked Anderson, referring to the miniseries on slavery.

While Madonna gave a widely disliked Prince tribute at the Billboard Music Awards, the Prince tributes on Sunday night were sprinkled throughout the show, by Sheila E, Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, and others. All were widely praised.

But Karen Townsend of Newsbusters perfectly captured the irony of the evening, lost on the attendees and the viewers. “Isn’t it interesting that these wealthy, privileged black entertainers kept mentioning that things must ‘be fixed’ in an America run by a black president and their choice for change is an old, white lady,” she wrote. “By supporting Hillary Clinton, they support Obama’s third term — how does more of the same ‘fix’ anything?”