Terry Crews doesn't regret 'Black supremacy' tweet: 'I really want the dialogue'
Terry Crews will keep talking about his controversial “Black supremacy” tweet if it furthers the conversation about race.
The Brooklyn Nine-Nine star and America’s Got Talent host, 51, appeared on Tuesday’s The Talk and was asked about the tweet, which prompted backlash earlier this month, leading him to clarify his comments. Crews made it clear he doesn’t regret what he wrote.
“What I said was defeating white supremacy without white people could create black supremacy,” Crews reiterated, referring to this tweet.
The former football star explained, “In black America, we have gatekeepers. We have people who have decided ... who is going to be black and who’s not. And I simply — because I have a mixed-race wife [Rebecca King] — have been discounted from the conversation, a lot of times, by very, very militant movements, black power movements. I’ve been called all kinds of things — like an Uncle Tom — simply because I’m successful, simply because I’ve worked my way out of Flint, Michigan.”
Crews said, “The problem with that is black people have different views. When you are white, you can be Republican, Libertarian, Democrat. You can be anything. But if you are black, you have to be one thing.” (Crews went on to reference presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s comment, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” to illustrate his point.)
Crews said “blackness is always judged.” Because of that, “I’m going, Wait a minute: That right there is a supremacist move. You have now put yourself above other black people.”
Crews’s tweet that led to the backlash:
Defeating White supremacy without White people creates Black supremacy. Equality is the truth.
Like it or not, we are all in this together.— terry crews (@terrycrews) June 7, 2020
When co-host Sheryl Underwood asked if he regrets “using the term ‘black supremacy,’” he said no.
“I can’t really regret it, because I really want the dialogue to come out,” he said. “Maybe there’s another term that might be better — we’re ‘separatist’ or ‘elitist’ — but the thing is, I’ve experienced supremacy even growing up. I’ve had black people tell me that the white man is the devil. I’ve experienced whole organizations that have viewed themselves because of the suffering of black people, they have decided that now, we are not equal, we are better. And I think that’s a mistake.”
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