Recently, Kenderick Lamar performed at the Grammys, where he made clear all the issues that are going on in the black community. A week or two before that, Beyoncé told the world that it is time to get information to attack a lot of the same issues.

Ricky Martin who is most famous for making the hit, “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” posted on Twitter, “I’m still high from your performance. Thank You”. Ellen DeGeneres took to twitter and posted, “you are brilliant.”

Nothing ever goes that simple though. When there is positivity and praise, there is also negativity and hatred. Twitter users posted things like, ‘Unbelievably racist. I liked it actually but his words were mostly ignorant. Learn some reality.”

There’s nothing wrong with you having an opinion, if you did not like the performance, that is OK. How were these two performers being racist? Kendrick Lamar got on stage to encourage his community and gave hope to the hopeless by saying, “we gon be all right.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has multiple definitions of racism, but I think this one sums it up in a whole. Racism is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”

Now if we go off the terminology, how can we say that Kenderick Lamar and Beyoncé are being racist if they are trying to uplift their community? An example of racism was separating the blacks and white during segregation because people thought that blacks and white were not equal. This is known as racial segregation.

Another example of racism was Dylann Roof walking into a church and proclaiming he wanted to start a “race war”. Roof’s roommate stated, “He was big into segregation and other stuff. He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”

All these issues that are going on in America right now should open your eyes to society and should be a wakeup call. A young teen walked into a church and shot nine people while they were at Bible study and we did not call him all these names. Instead, the people who were hurt most stepped back and prayed for the young teen.

For these two artists to cause this much commotion because of a performance should raise some alarm. We need to stop being so quick to pull out the race card. Others need to actually learn what the definition of racism truly is.

We have come a long way, but we still have some more to go. It starts with us and I have faith that we will change the attitude of this nation when it comes to race.

Kwon Bill

Port Arthur