Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted Beyoncé’s Black Panther Party tribute at the Super Bowl, calling the performance an “attack [on] police officers.”
“I thought that she used it as a platform to attack police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect us and keep us alive,” Giuliani said Monday on Fox and Friends.
“What we should be doing, in the African-American community and in all communities, is build up respect for police officers and focus on the fact that when something does go wrong, okay, we’ll work on that,” Giuliani said.
Later in the show, co-host Anna Kooiman informed Giuliani of Beyoncé’s salute to the anti-police group Black Lives Matter, despite the fact that the singer received a police escort to the Super Bowl.
“I think it was outrageous,” Giuliani responded. “The halftime show I thought was ridiculous anyway. I don’t know what the heck it was. A bunch of people like bouncing around and doing strange things. I actually don’t even know why we have this.”
In the video for Beyoncé’s new single “Formation,” police officers are seen raising their hands in the air, à la Michael Brown who did not have his “hands up” when Officer Wilson fired on him.
The release of the controversial video and it’s debut in front of millions at the Super Bowl coincided with news that Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z, will donate $1.5 million to Black Lives Matter and other groups, via the couple’s struggling streaming music service Tidal.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson