Former NFL star Ray Lewis, who is no stranger to controversy, has sparked some outrage with his latest comments about the Black Lives Matter movement. Since retiring from football in 2013, Lewis has laid low for the most part but this week, he raised eyebrows once again after openly criticizing BLM.
In a 9-minute long video that Lewis posted on Facebook, he talks about how he believes the Black Lives Matter movement does not care enough about black-on-black crime. He specifically references the ongoing violence in Chicago, saying that the murder rate has risen 72 percent in 2016 alone. He angrily protests how people are silent when it comes to black-on-black crime while there is much more outrage regarding police brutality against black people.
“I’m trying to figure out in my mind why no one is paying attention to black men killing black men,” he says. “Why do we always find ourselves half the victims, and now we have the separation once again that we’re being victimized because of one bad white cop, two bad white cops, three bad white cops, killing a young black brother. But every day we have black-on-black crime, killing each other? The March murder rate rose by 29 percent, but we’re not rioting in the streets about black on black killing each other.”
“I know black lives matter, because I’m a black man,” he continued, “but man, stop killing each other. Man, we got to put these guns down in Chicago. Baltimore, Miami, man it ain’t that hard. You got to be OK with earning a living. It ain’t supposed to be easy. If we don’t change what we’re doing, not only will our kids not have a future, but we might find ourselves extinct.”
Many people gave Lewis’ preachy video the side-eye, while also pointing out that the retired NFL player himself was responsible for some black-on-black crime back in the day. However, others were in agreement with him. His video, which has since gone viral, has gotten over 41,000 likes and has been viewed over 4 million times.
What do you think about Ray Lewis’ comments?
