Benjamin Watson Quotes

The thing that started the peace movement in Ireland was anger - my anger. It wasn't anger; it was fury.

Part of the attraction of the riots is the looting, which seems to be almost unrestrained. I always thought that when rioting breaks out, looters must be shot. Otherwise the situation will get entirely out of hand. [Lyndon] Johnson has made all the right gestures but it is exceedingly difficult to see any end to the tension, let alone the violence which seems to be in some way part of the American way of life.

Even people who say that black people are minorities, there are a billion black people in the world. A billion white people. What part of that is a minority? If you separate yourself, then maybe. But I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.

I am very happy for all the players doing the Black Lives Matter bend the knee. We are all in the same boat.

Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy.

[On urban unrest:] The only way to get respect is to be willing to use violence.

So don’t follow me up and down your market. or your little chop suey ass will be a target. So pay your respects to the black fist or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.

Let me emphatically point out that … sympathy is useless unless it is accompanied by indignation, and indignation is useless if it exhausts itself in words instead of taking shape in deeds.

We will have demonstrations until the injustices that have caused them are eliminated.

I'm not afraid to say I'm at war with the pigs.

I ask for calm yet resolute voices to be heard in our communities. It is imperative that people of good will, those who believe in a just and fair criminal justice system, hear our voices.

Never boo or hiss at my rallies. That is for people with no hope.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.

There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality.

A lot of times, we get stuck, and we are followers. When you hear one person say, 'black lives matter,' or 'blue lives matter,' all lives matter. It's not right what is going on in this world on both sides.

In the absurd idiocy of identity regressive politics, looting is seen as protest, and protecting one's own property is seen as privilege.

We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jails over and over again. And then you holler, 'Be patient.' How long can we be patient?

I've been trying to understand conflict and violence ever since I was a kid. You know. There were a few things that happened even on my block - the Black Panthers used to be right around the corner from where we were.

So many stories have been told about Black Lives Matter. The beauty of building out a decentralized network, the beauty of building out something that's a hashtag, is that so many people can take it and run with it. The bad part about that is so many folks can take it and run with it - and misuse it and co-opt it.

I think Charlottesville was shocking for some, but it wasn't for me or for my family, I mean, because I grew up in 1980s Nashville.

Black, white and brown people have to work together to find new answers. The only way we can stop the systemic problems that people of color have faced all our lives is through honesty and transparency.

Why do we have to have another riot?

Chicago, I feel, is a microcosm for the segregated, violent environment that is America. I try to not only speak about these things in music, but also try to address these things in real life tangibly with action.

Things like Ferguson and Eric Garner show us there's an unequal distribution of forward momentum in America.

I feel in my heart it is right to continue to kneel during the national anthem, and I will do whatever I can to be part of the solution.