Pharrell is having his say on the shooting of 18-year-old Mike Brown, and he has some questions about the teen’s “bully-ish behavior.”
To start, race isn’t an issue that he likes to discuss because it takes a “very open mind” to be receptive to his opinion (and maybe because everyone went bad on him for those “new black” comments). “But I’m very troubled by what happened in Ferguson, MO,” he told Ebony.
At the top of his list of troubling matters is President Obama’s absence from Ferguson. “I feel like the president should have gone down there,” said P. “I think sending Attorney General Holder was a kind gesture, but the president should have gone. He didn’t have to go and take a side; all he needed to do was show his presence and everybody would have straightened up. But he didn’t go. I won’t fault him. He’s a man with a lot of weight on his shoulders, but I personally would have gone because being a ‘man of the people’ means you’re right there with them in it. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Led by example.”
As for Brown, Pharrell wants to know why the teen stealing a box of cigars from a convenience stores and pushing a clerk isn’t being discussed. “It looked very bully-ish,” he concluded. “That in itself I had a problem with. Not with the kid but with whatever happened in his life for him to arrive at a place where that behavior is OK. Why aren’t we talking about that?”
From a patriarchal respect, Pharrell took a note from Bill Cosby’s criticism of Black families. “Listen, we have to look at ourselves and take action for ourselves. Cosby can talk that talk because he created Fat Albert, he tried to buy NBC, he portrayed a doctor on The Cosby Show and had all of us wearing Coogi sweaters. You’ve got to respect him.”
Regardless of how Brown acted, the 41-year-old “Happy” singer doesn’t think he should have lost his life. “I believe that Ferguson officer should be punished and serve time. He used excessive force on a human being who was merely a child. He was a baby man.”
Brown disregarding Wilson’s reported demand that he “get the f*ck on the sidewalk,” the teen was “asking for trouble,” noted Pharrell.
“But you’re not asking to be killed,” he made clear. “Some of these youth feel haunted and preyed upon, and that’s why that officer needs to be punished.”
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Photo: WENN
