NYPD Boycotting Quentin Tarantino for Protesting at #BLM Rally
Quentin Tarantino is down for the cause. After telling reporters he basically doesn't give a damn what Black critics think about him, the filmmaker is trying to backpedal on his controversial comments by participating in a #BlackLivesMatter protest in New York City.
The Django Unchained director marched with protesters and spoke out against the killing of unarmed Black people by police during the #RiseUpOctober rally, organized by Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party and author Dr. Cornel West. Also referred to as the "Say Their Name" rally, protesters spoke the names of the many victims of police brutality. Tarantino certainly didn't take a back seat at the event, even addressing the crowd from the podium.
“A 12-year-old Black male child,” Tarantino said, as the crowd chanted Tamir Rice. “On November 22, 2014, Tamir was playing with a toy gun in the park. After a 911 call where the person calling said the gun was probably a fake and the person holding it was probably a juvenile, the police rushed onto the scene and shot Tamir within two seconds.”
He continued, "I'm a human being with a conscience. And if you believe there's murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I'm here to say I'm on the side of the murdered."
Meanwhile, the NYPD is having none of it. The head of the police union has called for a boycott of Tarantino's films, saying that the director's participation in an "anti-police" protest just four days after a cop was murdered is plain wrong. "It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too," Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, said Sunday in response to Tarantino. "The police officers that Quentin Tarantino calls ‘murderers’ aren’t living in one of his depraved big-screen fantasies — they’re risking and sometimes sacrificing their lives to protect communities from real crime and mayhem."
Watch the director address racial backlash against his films on 106 & Park, below.
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