Geraldo Rivera and other news anchors took to Fox News’ The Five segment on Tuesday (June 30) to discuss Kendrick Lamar‘s powerful performance of “Alright” at the 2015 BET Awards — and they weren’t impressed.
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“This is why I say that hip-hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years. This is exactly the wrong message,” Rivera said when touching on this “Alright” line: “And we hate po-po/ Wanna kill us dead in the street, fo sho.”
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Rivera continued to name recent acts of violence and racism (the Charleston church shooting, the death of Baltimore’s Freddie Gray) but forgot to point out that a majority of the recent deaths and injustice against black men and women have been in the hands of police or the words of unity and resilience in Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly single.
Rivera said the same exact words to HuffPost Live’s Josh Zepps in February, singling out entrepreneur Russell Simmons. Rivera’s comments come a month after conservative Bill O’Reilly — also known to spew words of ignorance in connection with hip-hop — blamed the decline of religion in America on hip-hop.