Newish hip hop star Doechii won just more than just an award last night.
On the BET Awards, 26 year old Doechii was the only artist to speak out against Donald Trump and about the violence in Los Angeles.
Doechii’s eloquent and brave statement got rousing applause from the audience in the Microsoft Theater. As she said, this was going on “just outside the building” — literally just a few blocks away a protest was going on that included ICE and unidentified men in masks with machine guns causing “fear and chaos.”
Listen to this speech. Doechii — real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon — should be carried high on shoulders this morning. We need more artists to speak up in such a cogent manner.
She said:
“I do wanna address what’s happening right now outside of the building,” she declared. “There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order. Trump is using military forces to stop a protest, and I want y’all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us.”
“What type of government is that?” Doechii asked. “People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it’s my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people.”
“For Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza,” she went on. “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear, and I hope we stand together, my brothers and my sisters, against hate, and we protest against it. Thank you, BET.”
This is what she was referring to, happening simultaneously a few blocks away:
Happening now in LA pic.twitter.com/hJcMd393uo
— Erin Burnett (@ErinBurnett) June 10, 2025
