You all saw KeKe Palmer on the front line taking a stand for justice. In a video KeKe was seen speaking to officials asking them to take a stand with her and the rest of the protestors. “March beside us. Let the revolution be televised, march beside us and show us that you’re here for us.” One guard explains he cannot march more than a city block because he has to protect nearby businesses. He and other guardsmen then kneel when the crowd asks them to show solidarity.
KeKe Palmer spoke about the moment in an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine saying, “We’re the ones that need to be protected, not the damn buildings!” she said. “The buildings can be rebuilt. When we start to approach [the guardsmen], I’m literally just thinking aloud, ‘Why are they not with us?’… I was overwhelmed with the emotion of everybody knowing what’s happening, that it’s not right. And this is something that, as a Black person, we’ve known… I know what it feels like to be hated for your skin. It’s so silly and it’s so stupid, but it’s so cruel. I know what it feels like when somebody is racist toward you, and you literally go to a sunken place, you can’t speak.”
“At that moment, I felt like, ‘You’re human like me. I’m fighting out here, not just for me but for you too, you and the universe,’” Palmer continued. “Everything I said came out like word vomit. I know I didn’t let him get a word in edgewise, but it was because I wanted him to feel me. I wanted to connect to the human, not the suit, not this robot-ass s—. ‘Yo, we need you to take a stand with us because this has got to stop.’”
KeKe Palmer went on to talk about how moving the protest is and was to her. “It was so euphoric,” she said.”I just felt so united with everybody. It wasn’t no celebrity-type s—, you know what I mean? I’ve never felt like that before. If I sit and think about everything that’s happened in this country, I wouldn’t get out of f—ing bed in the morning. So for us to have that moment of just helping each other heal, just standing by each other, marching and saying, ‘No justice, no peace.’ That’s so powerful.”
Palmer spoke with Variety back in June to talk about why she joined the movement. “I have waited for a revolution, I believe, my entire life,” Palmer wrote. “I feel it’s like this for many millennials; messages about following rules and staying in line have since evolved into calls to stand up and get others to stand with you, to challenge authority and recognize different life experiences while gathering with others who are like-minded.”
