If you tuned into the 2012 BET Awards you may have noticed Jamie Foxx with a certain attire. While most are concerned with the glitz and glamour of the red carpet, Jamie Foxx made a statement with a red tribute T-shirt to Trayvon Martin. TheSource.com caught up with Jamie at the Foxxhole Radio All-White Party at The Pool After Dark at Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City. Here is what he had to say.
TheSource: Live and direct Jamie Foxx, celebrity weekend. What’s going on, how’s it going bro?
Jamie Foxx: We just getting it in, man. You know how we get down, you know we go hard. We had a lot of people out here laughing. Last week we did it, we got a different response. So, hopefully, every week we can keep the laughs going and eventually were going to make it into a comedy tour and then to the movies. So be looking out.
TheSource: That’s whatsup. Last week on the BET Awards, you had on a Trayvon Martin shirt.
Jamie Foxx: Yeah.
TheSource: Tell our viewers what it is, what the issue means to you, and what it means to the Hip-Hop society?
Jamie Foxx: I’ll tell you what It means to everybody; everybody that got kids. I got an 18 year-old daughter, she got 18 year-old boy friends. My thing, I come from the kid-aspect of it. It’s like when I see the Trayvon Martin case, sometimes it shocks me that people would have anything negative to say about finding justice for a child. When a child is walking around, he’s thinking like a child. He’s thinking like a 17 year-old, 18 year-old who’s going on about his day, when a man with a gun is already on the phone with 911. He has something completely different in his mind. So when those two people meet; it’s up to the grown up. It’s up to the grown up to take responsibility so something bad doesn’t happen to the child. My thing is this, a lot of the times you [the public] make it about race. To me, there is that component but let’s not forget about the children. It’s like when you look at what they did to Debenham, which I thought was just terrible, they actually played the 911 tape and you hear the gunshot go off when Trayvon Martin was killed. And right in the audience is his parents. He was so nonchalant with it, they were so nonchalant with the fact with that were going to play this tape in front of you. That was the sound of your child being released to the angels. And to me, I’m not going to ever stop brining attention to that because it won’t just be Trayvon Martin. One day it’ll be a white person; one day it’ll be a Hispanic person; one day it’ll be an old person. Theres another case going on right now, were a Hispanic guy calls 911, films what he’s doing and says ‘I’m just standing my ground.’ A kid, who’s 28 years-old, who’s white, an elementary school teacher comes out to see what’s going on. A few words ensues, he shoots a kid, that kid had a one-year-old child. So, it’s bigger than that. Its Trayvon Martin, but I want to make sure though, with the platform when your hot is when you have to say something. When you actually have the power to say something , is when you have to let it out because you cant wait too late, too long, and then my careers is whatever now. At the height of your career is when you should let people know that you gotta do the right thing.
Interview By: Daniel Greene
