During his speech at VH1’s Hip-Hop Honors: The ’90s Game Changers, Pharrell Williams seized the opportunity to address the real enemy at the helm of today’s social unrest.
“I know it sounds like hijacking the moment on my Jon Snow s**t,” Williams said, referring to the pro-revolutionary character from HBO’s Game of Thrones. “They keep talking about a wall. But the enemy is this divisive mentality. It’s on this side of the wall… The white nationalists are walking towards your future. What you gonna do?”
While Skateboard P did not specifically reference the actions of a group of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month, he was moved to deliver what he clearly felt was a felicitous message concerning the human condition.
“For everybody at home watching this and acting like y’all don’t see what’s going on out there, you gotta open your eyes,” he noted at the beginning of his speech. “Don’t think just because they’re coming at the African-Americans and they’re coming at the Jewish community and they’re coming at the Hispanics that it can’t be you.”
Williams is set to headline a concert for Charlottesville with Dave Matthews Band, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and The Roots, along with some “special guests.”
While tickets are free (Charlottesville residents, UVA students, faculty and staff and residents of the adjacent counties get first dibs), attendees are encouraged to make a donation to the “Concert for Charlottesville Fund” at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. Beneficiaries of the fund include victims of the events in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, their families, first responders and organizations devoted to the promotion of healing, unity and justice locally and nationwide.