Orlando Jones On The Bullet Bucket Challenge (664 hits)
Orlando Jones On The Bullet Bucket Challenge: 'I'm Not Pointing The Finger At Police Or White People'
We spoke to the actor about his challenge and he's inspired us to make a difference.
Orlando Jones may be a funnyman, but the “Bullet Bucket Challenge” he created is no laughing matter. The “Sleepy Hollow” actor launched a campaign reminiscent to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in hopes of effecting change in our world. The tragic killing of unarmed teen, Michael Brown, at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri has rocked our country and Jones could no longer stand idle and watch the hate boil over into riots, militarized police and clouds of tear gas. So he did something about it.
MUST READ: Ferguson Inspires: Orlando Jones Creates A ‘Bullet Bucket Challenge’ & Demands The World To Effect Change
Jones told #TeamBeautiful exclusively, “What I’m doing is pointing a finger at myself, saying that I am no longer willing to stand on the sidelines and be silent about this sort of thing.” He adds, “I want to do what I can to try to make a difference. I’m saying join me in that and that alone.” Weary of seeing our people being brutalized, Jones is urging us to ban together in the same way many of us have for the freezing cold ice bucket challenge and think differently.
“Try and not be angry for a moment and just listen to what’s being said and instead of responding to hate with hate. It’s not like it’s impossible. It’s the start of a conversation,” Jones urges. The actor also gave us insight on why he won’t blame the police (nor white people), what action items people can take to join in his Bullet Bucket Challenge and what he believes it will take to change our world.
HelloBeautiful: Can you tell us some of your major thoughts on what’s happening in Ferguson as well as what’s happening with this new shooting?
Orlando Jones: The idea of us versus them is really what it is to me. But, it’s not Black people against White people and it’s not the police versus citizens. I’m not sure where that mentality ultimately gets us. It’s the people who want to see change and leave this world for our children better than we inherited and people who are totally fine with the status quo and living in a world of hate and fear. That’s a fight we can win.
The more we focus the issue on just Ferguson, we lose sight of what’s actually happening and what we can all do to affect change. I feel like the US needs to unite against THEM to affect the change we want, which is to see a better world. That struggle is global. And so I think like the ALS bucket challenge, my challenge is also about a disease. That disease is apathy and it festers and grows every time we see oppression in the world and do nothing. An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. In my humble opinion, apathy is a curable disease. Killing unarmed black men is a curable disease. Denying any human being their human rights for any reason, again, a curable disease.
I think as long as we make sure to look at these things globally, you can truly affect a conversation that is meaningful. The civil right movement was a human rights movement. We’re still in that fight and people of color live all over the globe. Disenfranchised people live all over the globe. We’re all human. It’s human rights.
Actor and comedian, Orlando Jones sparked the “Bullet Bucket Challenge” to call attention to the disease in our country called apathy, something he believes is way bigger than one tragedy in Ferguson:
“It festers and grows every time we see oppression in the world and do nothing. An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. In my humble opinion, apathy is a curable disease. Killing unarmed Black men is a curable disease. Denying any human being their human rights for any reason, again, a curable disease.
I think as long as we make sure to look at these things globally, you can truly affect a conversation that is meaningful. The civil right movement was a human rights movement. We’re still in that fight and people of color live all over the globe. Disenfranchised people live all over the globe. We’re all human. It’s human rights.”
