Through her brilliant comedy, Leslie Jones always has a way of cutting through the nonsense of any issue and getting right to the heart of it. Now, she’s using her personal life experience and POV to remind young protesters that raising their voices is good, but voting is essential.Speaking with her old
SNL buddy Seth Meyers on
Late Night with Seth Meyers, Leslie, who is 52, recounts her time as a young 22-year-old in Compton when the Rodney King protests shook L.A.“There was nothing you could have said to me back then,” she passionately explained over video-chat. “I was ready to burn it down because I was like, ‘We got to do something. There's got to be something that we're doing.’ But, you know, at that time, we really thought we were doing something. We really thought, ‘Hey, we going to tear this up. They're going to pay attention.’ And nothing happened. The officers got off. They're probably somewhere fishing.”
The
1992 Rodney King protests, often referred to as "The L.A. Riots," were another moment in U.S. history when demonstrators took to the streets to fight a prejudiced legal system. The protests were sparked after four white LAPD officers were acquitted of the brutal beating of taxi driver Rodney King during his arrest the year before. The subsequent uprising resulted in five days of unrest which included the destruction of hundreds of buildings, thousands of civilian injuries and 50 deaths.“It makes me sad,” Leslie continued, in reference to the current unrest, “because I'm looking at this and I'm knowing that [the Black Lives Matter protests and the riots are] not going to work. Like, it's not going to do anything. We have a president that's standing up there, calling us thugs and sending out National Guard. He's not listening to anything that anyone's going to say.""I think the only thing he's going to listen to is votes," she stated. "This is why I was telling everybody, 'If you're going to change something, you have to fight the same fight that they're fighting. You have to get into their ring. You have to get educated and you have to vote. It's just the only way.' It's almost like I wish we would have pulled a gangster move and not did nothing and just waited until November and just stormed his ass!”Leslie went on to add that one of the most devastating results of the 1992 uprising was the loss of black businesses that were taken and torn down, many of which were never able to re-open, and other non-black-owned businesses ended up taking their place. “I feel like we burning down our own house,” she said.[video_embed id='1968993']RELATED: Don Lemon calls out celebrities for "doing nothing" [/video_embed]Last week,
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah
gave an impassioned speech adding perspective to the concept of "riots and looting." The comedian explained that we as a society have adhered to a social contract, but because much of law enforcement do not feel obligated to maintain that social contract for every citizen equally (especially when it comes to serving and protecting black people) looting and riots are a justifiable reaction by an oppressed community. It is society letting the powers that be know that they won’t withstand the inequality anymore.On Monday night’s show, Seth spoke to another
SNL alum, Michael Che,
who said that he’s never called 9-1-1 because he feels it’s a service not meant for him. Leslie similarly recounted to Seth the harrowing experience of having to retrieve her brother from back alleyways after he had been beaten and dumped there by police. She began to say that with time and age, she has realized that not all cops are bad, but she then added, “Damn, Seth, it's really hard to say what I really want to say because, you know, you just got to keep an even, balanced keel, you know?”The
proudly outspoken Leslie Jones having to refrain from truly speaking her mind because she’s a black entertainer in a white industry speaks volumes, and Seth had to admit that he can’t imagine what she’s going through right now.[video_embed id='1969733']BEFORE YOU GO: A panel of Canadians talk about being black in Canada [/video_embed]
