FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The award-winning songwriter gave his thoughts on the unrest in Ferguson after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in Michael Brown’s shooting death.
Grammy Award-winning producer Pharrell Williams has previously gotten flak for his comments on race, such as when he told Oprah that “the new black doesn’t blame other races for our issues.” But that didn’t stop the singer-songwriter from voicing his thoughts on Monday’s grand jury decision in Ferguson, Mo., although he said he didn’t want to “get … in trouble.”
In an extensive interview with Ebony, the star wondered why there wasn’t more discussion about why Michael Brown exhibited the behavior he did in the convenience store, which Williams described as “bullyish.”
“It looked very bullyish; that in itself I had a problem with,” Williams said, referring to released surveillance video that allegedly shows Brown forcefully stealing cigarillos from a store shortly before he was fatally shot by Officer Darren Wilson. “Not with the kid, but with whatever happened in his life for him to arrive at a place where that behavior is OK. Why aren’t we talking about that?”
However, he did say that Wilson should have been held accountable for shooting Brown. “I believe that [the] Ferguson officer should be punished and serve time. He used excessive force on a human being who was merely a child. He was a baby, man. The boy was walking in the middle of the street when the police supposedly told him to ‘get the f–k on the sidewalk,’” Williams told Ebony. “If you don’t listen to that, after just having pushed a storeowner, you’re asking for trouble. But you’re not asking to be killed. Some of these youth feel hunted and preyed upon, and that’s why that officer needs to be punished.”
Source: The Root | BREANNA EDWARDS
