Billie Eilish joined Bad Bunny in speaking out against ICE during her acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, slamming the organization after winning song of the year for “Wildflower.”
The singer was bleeped as she said “fuck ICE,” giving strong commentary during the speech. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe this. Everyone else in this category is so amazing. I love you so much,” she said, standing next to her brother Finneas. “I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land. And, yeah, it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE. That’s all I’m going to say. Sorry. Thank you so much.”
You’re right. I honestly rather see celebrities in the streets in solidarity with the people, freezing and standing up to ICE. They are condemning ICE in their fancy clothes. It’s just them sucking their own dicks. Everyone hates ICE. It’s not bringing attention to anything. The shootings are doing that.
Don’t downplay the importance of influence. That was a large audience and using the platform to at least say something encourages others to start being comfortable saying the same thing. Most people aren’t the protestors in Minneapolis, including most of us here. By opening the door to outward criticism, people the follow these artists and listen to them are being given further permission, internally, to voice the same opposition.
No, it’s not as brave as standing face to face with tyranny in the streets, but both fronts are worth fighting on.
While I do agree, they should’ve been screaming the message earlier. With more passion. Not “um, ICE sucks. Fuck em. They bad.” They can do both. It’s just most of them are too comfortable in their mansions to go the next step and practice what they preach.
I’m a nobody, but earlier last year I became a community leader and helped organize protests in my red city. Imagine what they can do if they are shoulder to shoulder with the people.
“They didn’t do it on my schedule, so fuck them.”
What an immature take.
Yes, let’s keep putting hope in celebrities. That’s really helped us so far.
I didn’t say anything about putting hope in celebrities, but shitting on them for spreading a message you agree with is really dumb.
If you have influence, you also have the responsibility to make sure your voice reaches as many people as possible. Screaming this message earlier is a good way of lowering your chances of getting access to a mic at the Grammy at a moment where most people are listening.
Everyone was clapping. Everyone agreed. Everyone already knows the situation. They know it’s now safe to speak against ICE so it won’t hurt their bottom dollar.
People with influence should use that influence for the betterment of everyone.
Positive outcomes as a result self aggrandizing really shouldn’t be a problem. Quit with the “it’s not perfect so they should do nothing” rhetoric, it self destructive.
No, not everyone hates ICE, unfortunately. Here on lemmy sure. But this was an opportunity to get a message out to the Fox listeners, the trumptards, the people who have not heard, or don’t believe what’s actually going on.
At this point, nothing will change their mind until ICE is knocking down their front door or shooting someone they care about.
As pessimistic as I naturally am, I actually don’t believe that. The trump administrative lies all the time, Fox News lies and spins an incredible amount, there are constant lies on Xitter. I think they do this because they have to. They know that if the truth was more unavoidable, they’d face much more backlash from the typical trump backers. I’m sure plenty of Trumpers wouldn’t care, but I think there’s a significant group of trump supporters who are only so because they’re stuck in the right wing echo chambers.
celebrities aren’t normal people. they don’t want to be around you. they just want your money. and they will say what they think will get them money.
I don’t think that’s true across the board.
sorry, do the majority of celebs fly commercial and show up to protests?
or do they just say crap at award shows to score points with little zero inconvenience or consequence to themselves?
You just described the vast majority of people.
i’m not disputing that. most people are armchair activists at best.
and frankly, being an activist requires a certain mentality that most people don’t possess. I gave up on activism myself because so many activists are violent psychos and I want nothing to do with people like that. Everything is ‘peace and love’ until you mildly disagree with them, then you their enemy they must destroy.
Like I had people threaten me for not being pro bike lane enough, because apparently if I go to a bike lane rally, but I don’t think cars are evil and car drivers are evil, I’m evil.
OK, but I think the point a lot of commenters were making is Billie Eilish’s anti-ICE statement was likely genuine. She might be a slackivist, but it seemed like you attributed her statement to just a grift trying to get kudos and this attitude is applied to every progressive celebrity. I always find this perspective unnecessarily pessimistic.
I know being a celebrity basically gives you a mental illness, but I’m pretty sure celebrities authentically believe things, and if they were in it purely for a grift, they’d start appealing to rightwingers given how much more money they’d be making that way.