Now Playing
ABC/Lorenzo BevilaquaDiddy, Ashanti, Nas, and more celebrities have expressed their horror, outrage and anger on social media in connection with the death of George Floyd, the man who died shortly after being apprehended by Minnesota police on Monday.
Diddy shared a viral video of the incident on Instagram, which shows an officer kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed black man, later identified as Floyd, who pleads that he cannot breathe. Diddy captioned it, “AMERICA THE WORLD IS WATCHING,” adding the hashtags #GeorgeFloyd and #EnoughisEnough.
The video sparked protests in Minneapolis on Tuesday, as well as a national outcry.
Ashanti, in disbelief that the incident happened just one day after Memorial Day, when we celebrate our nation’s heroes, shared a still shot from the video, and called the incident “a cold, inhumane, soulless, cowardly act.”
Nas paid respect to Floyd, sharing a video of Floyd spitting some “real spill” and “words of wisdom,” while advocating to reduce youth access to guns.
Singer Letoya Luckett said she was still at a loss of words after her “13th attempt at writing a caption” on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Jeezy took a more aggressive approach, describing the incident as “Modern-day slavery,” and writing on Instagram, “They won’t stop till we stop them.”
Cardi B wrote on Instagram, “Enough is Enough!” while sharing a photo of Floyd.
“What will it take? A civil war? A new president? Violent riots? It’s tired! I’m tired! The country is tired!” she added. “You don’t put fear in people when you do this, you just show how coward you are and how America is not the land of the free!”
She then doubled down on Twitter, writing, “Not three, not five but almost 15 minutes of a cop[‘s] knee on a man’s neck while handcuffed. It’s so sickening. Things have to change.”
Common‘s nonprofit organization Imagine Justice tweeted an image of a flag that read: “A man was lynched by police yesterday.”
The four police officers on the scene were fired by Minnesota police on Tuesday.
By Rachel George
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
