The ice bucket challenge is a truly awesome phenomenon, and it has generated bookoos of attention and donations for a really important cause. It wasn’t originally about ALS, but advocates saw the perfect wave and smartly chose to ride it.
Jones made this video in the same spirit:
I wanted to do what ALS did, co-opt a viral thing and make it my own, to talk about the insanity happening in Ferguson and just around the world. … It’s not the first time I’ve seen a city in the world look like a war zone, and to be fair, where was my voice then? So for me, it was like, I can no longer be silent.
The video closes with Jones issuing a challenge to everyone who sees it: “To listen without prejudice. To love without limits. And to reverse the hate.”
Now that may not be as simple as dumping a bucket of ice water — or shell casings — on our heads, but it’s as worthy an undertaking as there ever were.
‘The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.’
— Orlando Jones (@TheOrlandoJones) August 18, 2014