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Newly surfaced video shows Jay-Z issuing pro-police remarks — and now he’s accused of blaming black people for police brutality
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation

Newly surfaced video shows Jay-Z issuing pro-police remarks — and now he’s accused of blaming black people for police brutality

His remarks did not go over well with many people, needless to say

Social media is ripping rapper Jay-Z for recently unearthed remarks on police brutality that he made during a social justice panel discussion in January.

The discussion took place at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. During the same event, the launch of Reform Alliance — a new criminal justice organization that aims to extract 1 million people from the criminal justice system within a period of five years — was announced.

What are the details?

In a newly posted clip from the panel, the entertainer and entrepreneur chalked up "adverse feeling for authority" to single-parent households without fathers.

During the panel, Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, also said that such environments cause young men to lash out at police, which, in turn, causes people to "lose lives."

"You think about the idea of growing up in a single-parent house, which I grew up in ... and having an adverse feeling for authority," he admitted.

"Your father's gone, so you're like, 'I hate my dad. Don't nobody tell me what to do,'" he recalled. "'I'm the man of the house.' And then you hit the street, and you run into a police officer, and his first thing is 'Put your hands up, freeze, shut up. ... You like, 'F*** you!'"

"That interaction causes people to lose lives," Jay-Z explained.

What else?

Elsewhere during the panel discussion, the rapper — who recently partnered with the NFL for social justice efforts — said that police should also be protected.

"We don't want the police in charge of the police areas to be in danger, either," he said. "We want to be very clear, you know: If someone commits a crime, they should go to jail."

Jay-Z pointed out that broken homes with incomplete families impact both "hardworking taxpayers" and "police officer families."

Some social media users insisted that the rapper was victim-blaming when it came to police brutality. Others insisted that he was also blaming the fatherless for police brutality. Others insisted that Jay-Z was flat-out wrong and said that white supremacy and capitalism cause police brutality.

The rapper has not publicly acknowledged the controversy at the time of this writing.

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