A video shared to Youtube on Tuesday showed millionaire singer Jill Scott singing her personal rendition of the National Anthem, and while her singing is great, her sentiment is absurd given our current sociology.
Scott, who has an estimated net worth well into the millions, used her opportunity to celebrate the country that allowed her to amass great success and wealth to shame its historical role in the slave trade. She failed to mention that there are considerably more people enslaved in the sex-trafficking trade today than when slavery was actually legal, as noted by Variety.
As an immigrant, it always confuses me when really wealthy, successful and talented people use their gifts to disrespect the places and people that allowed them to accrue their place in our current sociology.
You can take away whatever you want from Scott’s performance, but it really weirded me out. I don’t have a permanent place in this nation, and would give anything to have a life like the one America has allowed Scott to build. If she really doesn’t like it here that much, I’ll gladly take her place. Better yet, maybe one of the children or women currently being sex trafficked across our borders would like it?
I’ve traveled extensively around this beautiful planet, and there is literally nowhere else quite as incredible as America. Sure, there are some aspects of our history that aren’t great (as with every other nation), but there are plenty of contemporary crises that we can solve today that Scott could have used her platform to decry. (RELATED: Mark Cuban Has A Mental Breakdown Over Joe Rogan)
For example, a huge majority of gun crime in America is currently centered around suicide and inner-city gang violence, both of which are compounded by the never-ending drug and mental health crisis. Why not sing about solving these problems? That is actually doable.
We can’t solve historical slavery — because we already solved it by making it illegal — nor can we undo what settlers did to Native American populations, but we can make a difference to the problems we have today. We just need people with influence, like Scott, to give enough of a crap about other people to shine their light on real problems and solutions.
Unfortunately, I think virtue signaling like Scott’s will always distract us, preventing any real change or help for those who need it the most here right now.
You can watch the video here if you want. Or you could do literally anything else: