As protests all across the country enter their third week, one notable figure who has used his voice to speak on social injustice and police brutality used it once again to speak directly to protestors. Speaking to Bill Maher on Real Time With Bill Maher, Killer Mike joined the show just a week after asking Atlanta protestors to not “burn your own house down for anger with an enemy” to remind protestors that there must be a bigger plan and end goal than protesting and the destruction of property.
“I think that the kids that were out raging in the streets certainly deserve to be out raging in the streets,” Killer Mike said. “I appreciate the protest, I appreciate destroying property, when it’s followed the next day by real organizing. I want kids to know that the righteous anger is certainly permitted and I would say encouraged to wake society up.”
Moving forward in his conversation with Maher, Killer Mike stressed the need for further planning in the fight for equality.
But after the destruction of property, I need you to become an organizer. I need you to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. Protesting is the first step. It’s when you come in the ICU and you’re bleeding, they have to stop the bleeding first. And then how do we stabilize the patient? The stability comes through beating up your local ballot boxes. It’s in making sure that you vote in your prosecutors’ races, voting in terms of who your mayors and Senators are going to be, you have to start to do that.
Concluding their conversation, Killer Mike called for “a return to supporting small- and mid-level black businesses” in order to ensure that people outside the government will support the black community. “If we’re ever going to be free of total government control then we can’t be beholden on government for everything as well. So I believe there’s legal goals we should have, there’s legislative goals we should have, there’s educational goals we should have. So I don’t believe protest ever ends as much as it evolves into a way of life that demands justice.”
