Jimmie Allen On The Racial Divide: ‘Hateful Words Don’t Welcome A Listening Ear’
Jimmmie Allen was the latest artist to sit down with Beasley Media for a “Superstar Meet and Greet” with listeners. During the session, hosted by Ayla Brown, he discussed issues of race, explaining that his parents brought him up to love everyone, but they also told him that “There might be people who treat you differently because of how they were raised.”
He noted that he knew that he was going to address the killing of George Floyd, but he wanted to discuss his feelings, but in a way that would get people “to open their eyes and their hearts.”
He said, “You can yell and yell and yell, but until you change your approach, people won’t really hear you. Hateful words don’t welcome a listening ear.”
“Say you have a white guy from the south, he has no Black people in his life, and he has a family that might have taught him ‘Black people are like this.’ All the negative stereotypes. He sees it on television… [so] they kind of have to go back and unlearn everything they were taught.And at the same time they’re unlearning it, they have to process the fact that, ‘Man, my family really raised me to view people differently… because of the color of their skin.'”
He continued, “You have to be patient, and give people time to learn at their own pace, everything that’s being thrown at them, because it’s a lot.”
He noted that he has had to unlearn some biases that he learned from his parents.
Watch the full session below.
