Queen Latifah was an honoree at VH1’s Hip Hop Honors: All Hail the Queens on Monday, and she used her speech as an opportunity to address the national conflict over police brutality, most recently crystallized in the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and six police officers in Dallas. She told the crowd: “We all know that the world, our world, is really tense right now … There’s a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. I’m hoping that we can somehow manage to channel all of these emotions that we have in a positive way … Because I don’t care how much or [how many] things I have, or Puff has, or Missy has, or the ladies have. If I go outside and try to hail a cab, and he passes me for the white woman standing right there, that racism is still alive and kicking. And we have to change that. And I’m not blaming the white lady, she needed a cab, too. I’m just saying we need to change this attitude, and we must demand respect as women.†Watch Queen Latifah’s speech, wherein she also speaks to the importance of women in hip-hop’s past and future, above.
