{"id":293140,"date":"2020-06-02T06:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T12:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1157950"},"modified":"2020-06-02T06:22:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T12:22:00","slug":"james-corden-and-reggie-watts-break-down-while-urging-people-to-speak-out-on-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/music-news\/james-corden-and-reggie-watts-break-down-while-urging-people-to-speak-out-on-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"James Corden and Reggie Watts Break Down While Urging People to Speak Out on Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/akns-images.eonline.com\/eol_images\/Entire_Site\/202052\/rs_600x600-200602052628-600-James-Corden-Reggie-Watts.jpg?fit=around|600:467&amp;crop=600:467;center,top&amp;output-quality=90\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"photo-txt-0\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"43.994796594134\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-photo-text\" readability=\"28.670766319773\">\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/james_corden\">James Corden<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;broke down in tears during a heartfelt conversation with his friend and colleague, <strong>Reggie Watts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday night, the <em>Late Late Show<\/em> host addressed the&nbsp;civil unrest in the nation following the death of <strong>George Floyd<\/strong>. In Corden&#8217;s emotional message, he called for change and showed his support&nbsp;in the fight for justice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Good evening everyone, thank you for staying awake for our show on one of the saddest, scariest, yet most important times of our lives,&#8221; Corden said as he opened the show on Monday. &#8220;As you&#8217;ll all know, on Monday of last week a black man named George Floyd was murdered by the excessive force of the police.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If it was a one-off event, it would be an appalling, horrific tragedy that should shake all of us to our core,&#8221; Corden continued. &#8220;Yet this was the latest in a string of killings of unarmed black citizens by white people.&nbsp;<strong>Breonna Taylor<\/strong> was shot by police in her own home.&nbsp;<strong>Ahmaud Arbery<\/strong> was going for a jog when he was shot and killed by two men. And sadly, there are so many more victims that I could mention.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-2\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"66\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"22\">\n<p>Corden then shared that he had been &#8220;struggling all weekend&#8221; wondering what he would say to his viewers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because, who needs my opinion?&#8221; Corden said. &#8220;Surely, this is a time for me to listen, not talk. And then I realize that that&#8217;s part of the problem. People like me have to speak up. To be clear, I&#8217;m not talking about late-night hosts, or people who are fortunate like I am to have to have a platform. I&#8217;m talking about white people. White people cannot just say anymore, &#8216;Yeah, I&#8217;m not racist.&#8217; And think that that&#8217;s enough, because it&#8217;s not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not enough, because make no mistake, this is our problem to solve,&#8221; Corden added. &#8220;How can the black community dismantle a problem that they didn&#8217;t create?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"text-4\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"70.5\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-text-only\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"31\">\n<p>Corden went on to check in with his bandleader, Watts, asking, &#8220;How are you doing, Reg?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ah, crazy, I don&#8217;t know, feeling so much simultaneously, it&#8217;s crazy,&#8221; Watts replied. &#8220;I was fortunate to grow up in a place where I was pretty protected by my parents when it came to forms of racism that happened in my neighborhood. My mom was a fierce fighter and would get out of the house and get in people&#8217;s faces about, you know, people calling me the N-word or whatever growing up and being different and stuff. So I feel really grateful that my parents and my father fought so hard to make my life feel normal and to have me grow up feeling like I&#8217;m a human being rather than I&#8217;m a demographic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And just going back in my history, my father growing up in the Midwest and being in Vietnam and not being able to get a job when he got out of the Army because he was black,&#8221; Watts continued. &#8220;And the economy wasn&#8217;t doing that well and he had to reenlist, got sent back to Vietnam. And then when my parents got married their marriage wasn&#8217;t recognized in the U.S. because of laws prohibiting interracial marriage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watts also mentioned that his cousin, novelist <strong>Alice Walker<\/strong>, wrote about her experience in <em>The Color Purple<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"video-int-txt-5\" data-hook=\"scrollable-block\" readability=\"41.685987903226\">\n<section data-textblock-tracking=\"text-block-video-text\" data-swiftype-index=\"false\" readability=\"24.521169354839\">\n<p>&#8220;I have this history in the black community in the Midwest that I don&#8217;t access a lot because there&#8217;s a lot of pain and emotion there,&#8221; Watts said as he teared up. &#8220;So it&#8217;s hard and so much is happening. And I want to use my platform for good. I go in and out, you know? It&#8217;s tough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watching his friend tell his story, Corden himself broke down in tears.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry that you&#8217;re feeling this. I would give anything to be in a room with you and put my arm around. I would so much, I would give anything to be able to put my arm around you,&#8221; Corden told Watts as he wiped tears from his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the video above to see the conversation between Corden and Watts.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;E! stands in solidarity with the black community against systemic racism and oppression experienced every day in America,&#8221; the network <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1157639\/e-stands-in-solidarity-with-the-black-community-to-be-silent-is-to-be-complicit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said in a statement<\/a> on May 31. &#8220;We owe it to our black staff, talent, production partners and viewers to demand change and accountability. To be silent is to be complicit. #BlackLivesMatter.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1157950\/james-corden-and-reggie-watts-break-down-while-urging-people-to-speak-out-on-racism?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&#038;utm_source=eonline&#038;utm_medium=rssfeeds&#038;utm_campaign=rss_topstories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: E! Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Corden&nbsp;broke down in tears during a heartfelt conversation with his friend and colleague, Reggie Watts. On Monday night, the Late Late Show host addressed the&nbsp;civil unrest in the nation following the death of George Floyd. In Corden&#8217;s emotional message, he called for change and showed his support&nbsp;in the fight for justice. &#8220;Good evening everyone, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-18 18:45:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIDN - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}