Lizzo: I’m hopeful for racial justice
Lizzo is “hopeful” that change will come out of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The ‘Truth Hurts’ hitmaker has been an outspoken supporter for the movement following the killing of unarmed Black man George Floyd earlier this year, and has sad she believes real change could be made to tackle systemic racism around the world as more people from various backgrounds are coming together to support the cause.
She said: “Change is painful and I think you have to sign yourself up for that. This time, I saw something different, I saw the sudden allyship of young white people, which I had never seen. And I also saw people in the news realise that it’s more than just a hashtag and a moment and us complaining and that it’s real systemic poison. That got me for the first time a little hopeful.”
Lizzo has been speaking out against racism for years, and has called for more people to join her in demanding change from those in positions of power.
She added: “I remember there was a murder of a young black person unarmed in Minneapolis down the street from my house, his name is Jamar Clark. I wrote this song called ‘My Skin’ and I was very like ‘we got to make a change’.
“People were camping out from the precinct. We’re getting shot at by God knows who. It was scary. It was dark times.”
The ‘Juice’ singer also spoke about Tamir Rice, who was killed at the hands of police in 2014, as she said the 12 year old’s death caused her to “lose all hope” for change in America.
Speaking to David Letterman in a preview clip for his Netflix show ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman’, she said: “People politicised it. How can you politicise the murder of a child? And I was so numb, that I lost all hope for any type of change in this country.”