Source: Kevin Winter/BET / Getty
Creator of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Shonda Rhimes, has responded to a petition calling for the removal Jesse Williams from the show. The petition was started after Williams gave a powerful speech after accepting his BET Humanitarian Award.
With no help from Stacey Dash, some were quick follow suit and call Williams’ speech an “attack on white people.” The petition posted on change.org has over 24,000 signatures.
The petition’s explanation stated, “Upon receiving a humanitarian award at the BET awards, Jesse Williams released a cascade of inappropriate, unprofessional and racist commentary against police officers and Caucasians. Had any one of his offensive words been said by any other race other than an African American, they would’ve been publicly shamed, fired from whatever job they had, lost endorsements, advertisers, etc.”
Williams stated in his BET awards speech, “We’ve been looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day.” Williams continues, “So what’s going to happen is we’re gonna have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function, and ours.”
Williams spoke out in reference to the petition on twitter stating the following: “Do not promote empty people & their tantrums. Pure clickbait to gain followers, attention & money, for themselves, not you. Never you.”
Shonda Rhimes retweeted Williams’ tweet, then went on to tweet her feelings as well.
Shonda has spoken, and it appears that no matter how many signatures that petition gets, Williams is not going anywhere! If you missed his speech, watch it below, and read more on the story here.
