Cardi B has made a statement in regards to the protestors fighting for justice in George Floyd's murder, indicating that looting is the result of people being "tired" of fighting against police brutality. In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police, tons of activists and enraged Americans have taken to the streets of not only Minneapolis, but other cities around the U.S. to riot against the violence enacted by the police on black people. Some of these riots have resulted in the act of looting certain establishments, most notably a St Paul's Midway Target in Minnesota. While some are against looting as a form of protest, others feel that it's justified, like Cardi B. The rapper took to Instagram early Friday morning to share her thoughts on the whole situation.
"So I just wanna give my POV," Cardi began. "Seeing people looting and going extremely outraged, it makes me feel like ‘Yes! Finally! Finally, mothaf*ckas is gonna hear us now. Yeah!’ And as much as people is so against it, at this point, I feel like I’m not against it even though it do scare me and I don’t want anybody to get hurt. But it’s just really frustrating because police brutality been going on even way before I was born, but it has been more visual ever since social media started getting poppin’. Ever since, let’s say, Instagram started, how many peaceful protests have we seen? How many trending hashtags have we seen? These hashtags keep repeating themself. I feel like I’ve done videos against police brutality—this is like my seventh time. I’ve been doing police brutality videos ever since my teeth been f*cked up and the only sh*t that changed has been my f*cking teeth."
"People are tired," she continues. "They’re tired of showing that it’s like, ‘Oh, mother*ckas are educated, mother*ckas could take the grown and adult way and act peaceful.’ People are tired of that. So now this is what people have to resort to." Cardi then goes on to encourage her followers to vote in local elections in order to spark change.
"Another way for the people to take power—I don’t wan’t to make everything political, but it is what it is— it’s by voting. And when I say voting I’m not only talking about the president. We could vote for mayors, we could vote for judges, and we could also vote for DAs, district attorneys. Yes, we could vote for these people, for our county. We sure can."
"The people that are voting for these people are most likely cops, most likely rednecks," she points out. "That’s why every single time that some f*cksh*t like this happens, it goes to their favour. Because these people have the power as DAs, judges, to prosecute these cops when they do f*cksh*t like this. That’s why we have to vote. We have to be aware when these elections are going on. We have to be aware and inform ourselves of these people that are in power. You think because they’re not a senator, or they’re not a governor, or they’re not a president, that they don’t have no power, but they have power where you live at. And that’s a fact." Prior to making this video, Cardi also took to Twitter to share her thoughts on looting.