In a series of tweets and videos, actor and musician Shameik Moore has chimed in on the discourse surrounding police brutality against black men and women. Best known for his roles as Raekwon in Hulu’s Wu-Tang Clan series and Miles Morales in Into the Spider-Verse, Moore has been met with a backlash for his comments following the death of George Floyd in police custody.
"People are dying and we’re all handling it differently,” he said in a video after a number of his tweets, in which he suggested black people “need to learn how to deal with police,” were met with criticism. “Power hungry policemen should absolutely be reprimanded, punished for their behavior. How they’re handling us. … When I woke up I was thinking about a solution. We’ve been hoping that the police would treat us better for a very long time. Before I was born. The black community is dealing with the history of our people in 2020.”
In the trio of videos, he then goes to say that he offered his take on the situation after he saw a video of a black man “barking” at an officer. “Just giving him what he wants. What I was speaking to, is de-escalating situations.” He added that there are definitely cases of officers using unnecessary force with people complying, though, and apologized for any offense his tweets caused. The videos were also met with a similar reaction from those on Twitter, however.
In his tweets he made prior to the videos, Moore wrote, “I have a very strong opinion that the black community hates to hear.” He continued, “We need to learn how to deal with police… and or racism… because THIS is the part of the scenario we have failed to fix. We have to work on our community before blaming everything on ‘racist’ and the police.” He went on to reference “black on black violence,” similar to how a talking head on Fox News name-drops Chicago when school shootings provoke conversations on gun control.
”Why do we give them the energy they want?” he asked. “Give them an inch they WILL take a mile. … No one asked for my opinion but it’s 2020 not 1945… Meaning I’m more focused on black FUTURES than black history. I personally refuse to feel like a victim. I refuse to have a slave mentality. I don’t not [sic] fear for my life because I know how to carry myself in tuff situations.”
Instead of calling for an end to police violence, Moore asked, “Can we the black community find ways to avoid being killed? Or hunted.” While he stressed that he wants innocent black men to stop being killed by police, he said that he wants to see how his community can “help stop the problem.”
Also while on IG Live, Moore made comments about Rosa Parks that did not sit well with many.
here’s shameik saying rosa parks didn’t know there were black owned taxi cabs 😭 pic.twitter.com/TvfKAj8C1c
Shameik Moore just hopped on live to say Rosa Parks should’ve just taken a taxi LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Shameik Moore on live bringing up Rosa Parks and saying there were unknown taxicabs she could’ve taken. pic.twitter.com/QEKDXxpm1K
Shameik Moore really just said Rosa Parks should’ve taken a cab pic.twitter.com/BUTSAcriNv
My fave part of that IG video was him saying ‘few ppl know this’ the hubris in thinking there was some sacred info or solution that hadn’t occurred to a seasoned activist like Rosa Parks. Idk what to do with the audacity
Rosa parks should’ve taken a cab is definitely the wildest historical hot take I’ve heard in a while 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/GNibQhJUoe
See what Twitter had to say about Moore's controversial comments below, and check out his full string of tweets above.
