Days before the grand jury came to a decision on the Michael Brown case, Pharrell Williams did an interview with Ebony about racism and the occurrences in Ferguson, and criticized Brown’s actions.
“It looked very bully-ish; that in itself I had a problem with,” Williams said of Brown’s actions. “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?”
He then went on to bring up Bill Cosby’s previous diatribes in a speech at a 2004 NAACP event that Black people need to take some responsibility for the judgments placed on them.
“And I agree with him,” Williams said about Cosby. “When Cosby said it back then, I understood; I got it. Listen, we have to look at ourselves and take action for ourselves. Cosby can talk that talk because he created Fat Albert, he tried to buy NBC, he portrayed a doctor on The Cosby Show and had all of us wearing Coogi sweaters. You’ve got to respect him. I believe that 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.’ 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.”
He did, however, acknowledge that “the hangover from Ferguson is going to be a long one, worse than Trayvon Martin.”
After the Ebony interview, the “Happy” singer yesterday tweeted about the verdict in Ferguson, “I’m heartbroken over the news of no indictment in Ferguson. Let’s all pray for peace.”
