Monday January 16th was Martin Luther King Day this year, and rapper Wyclef Jean decided to tweet a sentiment about the late civil rights leader to pay tribute.
“Martin Luther King Jr. fought because all lives matter,” Wyclef tweeted.
The statement, though simple, exploded into a flurry of controversy from fans across the internet who believed Wyclef was going against “Black Lives Matter” supporters.
The backlash resulted in the rapper deleting the tweet.
On Tuesday, Wyclef Jean took to Twitter once again, but this time, to clarify his poorly received message.
“I appreciate all of your passion. But my message was definitely misunderstood. Here’s a recent interview that clarifies my stance…” he tweeted, along with a video.
“The reason black lives matter is that you can’t keep executing black people in broad daylight, and it’s on video, and you get away with it,” Wyclef Jean said. “That’s why black lives matter. It’s the same thing if you go back to it when they were lynching, right? Until we was like, you know, ‘we ain’t gonna put up with this,’ and actually get real legislation to support this, then all it was was just a conversation.”
“Black lives do matter, and we’re not saying white lives don’t matter,” he continued.
“Only idiots would be saying ‘why do black lives matter?’ The black lives matter the same way the police lives matter, the judge lives matter, you know? But at the end of the day, the situation that we’re dealing with right now – modern day execution, live on video, and people ain’t getting prosecuted and they’re getting away with it – black lives do matter,” Wyclef Jean concluded.
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