When Janelle Monae performed on NBC’s The Today Show on Friday, she used the platform to send out a message about police brutality, proclaiming that she and other activists will not be silenced. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. The crew of the morning news show interrupted Monae as she finished her set with her new protest anthem “Hell You Talmbout” and tagged on a statement about standing tall in the face of adversity. The text of her statement, which was cut off by an anchor and then the commercial break, was this:
“Yes Lord! God bless America! God bless all the lost lives to police brutality. We want white America to know that we stand tall today. We want black America to know we stand tall today. We will not be silenced…”
One viewer caught the incident while watching the performance from home and posted it on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/theseMYtweetz/status/632195350653112321
And as Fader notes, that performance is not currently featured on Today‘s post about Monae’s appearance. At least it isn’t as of this writing.
So, if The Today Show claims that they weren’t trying to mute the message, it sure doesn’t look that way, which is, as the kids say, “not a good look.” We know you’re trying to keep things all easy-going and innocuous in the morning, NBC, but c’mon! You don’t want to be the show that muted Janelle Monae. Get that performance — the whole performance — on the site and makes things right.
(Via Fader)
