In a six-minute Instagram video sponsored by skateboarding and clothing brand Supreme, comedian Katt Williams addressed the major events highlighting a chaotic 2020, including the coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice and the upcoming presidential election.
In a stand-up far more somber than his usual fare, Williams said that the coronavirus was not the first pandemic that the United States had endured, contrasting it with the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the 80s and 90s. He zoned in Hart’s Island in New York City – a mass gravesite of over a million unclaimed bodies, many of which had died from both AIDS and COVID-19.
“It’s an airborne virus, folks,” Williams said. “If you breathe air, put on a mask.”
The comedian then switched gears to George Floyd: “And because we can all agree that breathing is important, we can all agree that you putting your knee on a man’s neck for eight minutes is just murder. Just televised murder.”
Williams, who has frequently touched upon race and police brutality in his previous routines, urged all viewers to head to the polls in November, calling Trump “a perfectly suitable clown running the free world.”
“We got a guy whose advice included things that no decent crackhead would tell you to do to with a gunshot wound,” Williams said, referring to Trump’s dangerous and unproven comments on coronavirus cures, including everything from consuming cleaning products to ultraviolet ray exposure.
In the finale of his routine, Williams signed off with a special message to white Americans who might be afraid of their fellow Black citizens.
“If you see a sign that says Black Lives Matter, say out loud, white friends,” Williams said. “Watch how quickly things start to change in the country ... That anger and that rage that you think will one day be unleashed upon white families? You’ve been waiting on it for 400 years. We’re better people than that ... Not only can we do better, but we want to do better and we are doing better. And you’re free to join us.”
Watch Williams’ entire stand-up below.