Nick Cannon explained why he had to go to Minneapolis to join protesters after George Floyd died at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer.
The 39-year-old actor and comedian joined peaceful protesters to celebrate the memory of Floyd and to demand justice outside the Cup Foods store on Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis where Floyd died on May 25.
In an interview with Variety.com, Cannon called on white people to support the protesters and “dismantle all of those [racist] systems that this country was built on.”
“That’s why so many people get it wrong when it comes to racism. People think ‘Oh no, I’m not a racist.’ But if you support this system, you support racism. If you don’t step up and say this system has been wrong for years — from the war on drugs to criminalization of black men in general to the school-to-prison pipeline to the prison industrial complex.
“The same thing that made me go to Minneapolis is the same thing that made me go to Ferguson and to Charlottesville and to jails in Cook County and Washington, D.C. and to study criminology at Howard University. I did not want to be another celebrity tweeting or reposting a picture. I want to be authentic and educated and informed. I had to go to it.”
Cannon is the ex-husband of pop singer Mariah Carey, 51. They share 9-year-old fraternal twins: daughter Monroe and son Moroccan Scott.
