Calls for Trina to be canceled rang loudly on social media this week after she called the people protesting George Floyd‘s death in her hometown of Miami “animals.” The rapper has already apologized for her words and said it’s not what she meant at all.
Problems for Trina started on Wednesday when she was talking with her co-host Trick Daddy on their “The Trick N’ Trina Morning Show” on 99 Jamz. They were discussing the protests that were happening in Miami, where property damage and looting has taken place, similar to other cities where people marched. Trina believed that Miami having a 9 p.m. curfew was too late to maintain order and it should’ve been set earlier.
“Keep everybody off the street, these animals off the streets, that are running around in Miami-Dade County acting like they have escaped from a zoo,” said Trina, who also explained that one of her friends had a business that was destroyed during the protests. “Lock them up at 5 p.m. so the streets can be nice and clean. That’s how I feel.”
Many bashed Trina on social media for her words, like one person who wrote, “What Trina said was indefensible. I’m not even gonna try to make sense of it, she can go.”
The rapper eventually shot back at her critics and also seemed to take a dig at the protesters. “Some of y’all are plain f—– ignorant and nothing nobody do will help period,” wrote Trina.
But one day later, she did an about-face and called her comments insensitive, saying that she never said Black people were animals, just the protesters causing damage.
“Me, in my Trina’s world, I’m automatically speaking for Black people. I am the Black people,” she said on her radio show. “I am Black people. That’s who I’m speaking for, and I’m not going to say Black people are animals. But I didn’t say that ‘Hey, my Black people or all of my people.’ I’m not talking to you. Not the protesters that are trying to make a change.”
“I’m trying to understand what’s the solution,” she continued. “What is the answer to everything that’s happening. … I’m not calling nobody’s color or anything. That gap was I didn’t say, ‘Black people, my people,’ and I would never say that or call Black people animals or any name. I am a Black person I must be an animal. I must be the same person. I mean, that’s not who I am.”
Many said that Trina wasn’t being sincere and only apologized to save her reputation.
One person lumped the Miami native with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who on Wednesday said NFL players kneeling for the national anthem in protest disrespects the American flag and military. He apologized after being skewered on social media by people like LeBron James and Stephen Jackson.
“Trina knew what she said. Brees knew what he said. They meant every word,” one person tweeted. “How can they understand something in less than 24 hours that they couldn’t grasp in 20+ years of being adults?”
Another person wrote, “Trina and that apology. Who she was with Trick is who she really is. Tripling down on b.s. with that venomous tone. Calling people animals. She can keep it. I’d prefer if she just stood up in what she said instead of pretending like she ain’t still saying it behind the scenes.”
