Angry Fans Petition to Have Jesse Williams Fired from ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy After BET Acceptance Speech

The first sentence of the petition reads, “Jesse Williams spews hate speech against law enforcement and white people at the BET awards.” This exaggerated lie is just the spark needed in order to get over 1000 haters to sign a petition to get the actor kicked off of the ABC hit show Grey’s Anatomy.

During the week after the BET Awards aired and after Jesse Williams accepted his BET Humanitarian Award, when everyone thought the talk of the town would be the Prince tributes, Jesse Williams stunned the world when he used his moment to address the issues of black lives, police brutality, and calling out celebrities who are more concerned with brands names than they are building movements. The following day, Jesse’s speech was shared all over social media, it sparked debate and continued a conversation about the responsibility that stars have in relation to the black communities where they were born. Most people believed that Jesse did a great thing by using the BET Awards, which was aired on BET, Nickelodeon, and a few other cable channels simultaneously, by bringing these issues to a broad platform.

Of course, in the land of post-racial America, everyone wasn’t pleased by Jesse’s bad-ass speech. Grey’s Anatomy Facebook page was flooded with folks angry about what Jesse had to say, calling his speech a ‘hate-speech’ and accusing him of being a racist. These complaints have led to an official petition on Change.org demanding the firing of Jesse Williams from Grey’s Anatomy.

Do not promote empty people & their tantrums. Pure clickbait to gain followers, attention & money, for themselves, not you. Never you.

— jesseWilliams. (@iJesseWilliams) July 3, 2016

As of the drafting of this article, they have about 1,600 signatures with a goal to reach 2,000. According to Inquistr.com, Shonda Rhimes has given Jesse the thumbs-up for speaking out during the BET Awards, and as far as she is concerned, Jesse’s job is secure; which she confirmed today with this tweet:

Um, people? Boo don’t need a petition. #shondalandrules — shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) July 5, 2016

You can check out Jesse’s BET Huminitarian Award acceptance speech here