Article By Arthur Williams // EEW Magazine // Social Justice

Billionaire rapper Sean “Jay-Z” Carter recently said black folks are “past kneeling” as a form of protest, and “The View” co-host, Sunny Hostin, didn’t like that one bit.

The fired-up Christian lawyer called his statement flat-out “ridiculous” and “insensitive” on Tuesday, Sep. 3, during her first day back on air following summer vacation.

“The mere suggestion that we are past kneeling is ridiculous and I think it was very insensitive for him to say that,” said a clearly agitated Hostin.

The 50-year-old political analyst, who referred to herself as “the mother of a young black man,” shared her passionate views while discussing Jay-Z’s Roc Nation teaming up with the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative for events and social activism.

Hostin and many others have taken issue with the deal because it excludes former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, who was stripped of his job and blackballed from the league for kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of police killings of unarmed black men.

RELATED: Colin Kaepernick sings along to Hezekiah Walker’s song

The hullabaloo over the GRAMMY® Award-winning rap star and entrepreneur’s words started with him fielding questions from his company’s New York City headquarters alongside NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. When directly asked if he would kneel or stand, Jay-Z replied, “I think we’ve moved past kneeling and I think it’s time to go into actionable items.”

Even though he explained that “kneeling is a form of protest” and that he does “support protest across the board,” he also said it was time to move on to “actionable items.”

Hostsin noted that one of the leading causes of death for young, black men between the years 2013 and 2018 was police brutality. Kaepernick used his position to bring national attention to this serious issue and it cost him his job.

RELATED: Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid settle grievance cases against the NFL

By brokering a deal with the NFL, Hostin said, “I think what Jay-Z did, in effect, was provide the NFL cover for their actions of excluding Colin Kapernick from employment and I didn’t like it.”

Jay-Z, who had previously been viewed as a strong supporter of Kaepernick, founder of Know Your Rights Camp, received major backlash after it was revealed that the business mogul had not spoken to Kaepernick before cutting the deal.

Hostin is not letting him off the hook.

According to her, Jay-Z “could have done this with Colin Kaepernick,” adding, “I think that would have been much more powerful.”

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, over the course of a lifetime, black men face a one in 1,000 risk of being killed during an encounter with police, a rate much higher than that of white men.

Watch her argument below: