YG Calls Out Tomi Lahren's Privilege After She Criticizes Protestors

Of all the hip-hop traditions that have arisen since the advent of social media — mysterious album rollouts, Twitter beefing, fan-based Q&A sessions, etc. — one that never ceases to be entertaining is “rappers dunking on Tomi Lahren.” It seems like her tweets — especially the ones critical of Black people and other people of color — only set her up as a target to get thrashed online. From Cardi B threatening to “dog walk” her to Wale’s humorous misspelling of her name, it seems she walks into yet another landmine anytime she tries to comment on a particularly sensitive subject.

The latest rapper to blow up on her over her habitual line stepping is Compton’s YG, who pointed out her obvious and hypocritical privilege when she tried to criticize protestors of the police killing of Houston native George Floyd in Minnesota. Police choked Floyd by kneeling on his neck despite his protests that he couldn’t breathe, a tragedy which was caught on-camera and began circulating online, prompting outrage at yet another fatal incident of police brutality and sparking uprisings across the nation in solidarity.

In response to news images of buildings going up in flames, Lahren tweeted, “How does looting, rioting, and destroying your OWN community bring justice to anyone?” One of the responses reads, “Idk but they tried peacefully kneeling and y’all had a problem with that too,” referencing the peaceful protest and subsequent blackballing of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who Lahren previously derided multiple times. Lahren was noted as disingenuously asking protestors in the NFL, “What exactly are you kneeling for?”

YG, perhaps in an effort to make sure Lahren saw this particular response, took a screenshot and posted it to his own feed with a caption tagging Lahren and saying, “Hey privileged b****.” While the harsh language probably wouldn’t help his messaging, you kinda have to give him credit for censoring himself, something he generally refuses to do — he even gets mad at other people when they do it. While past precedence suggests that Lahren probably won’t learn her lesson, on the bright side, at least she’s keeping one of hip-hop’s newest cherished traditions alive.