Madonna Posts Son's George Floyd Tribute, Gets Slammed

Teen son David's dance honoring Floyd is deemed 'exploitive,' 'tone-deaf'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted May 29, 2020 7:00 AM CDT
Madonna Posts Son's George Floyd Tribute, Gets Slammed
Madonna is seen at the GLAAD Media Awards at the New York Hilton Midtown on May 4, 2019, in New York.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Madonna likely meant well with a tribute to George Floyd that she posted on social media Thursday, but the video featuring one of her sons has received more backlash than applause. E! News reports on the three-minute clip, which shows David Banda—the 14-year-old adopted by Madonna in 2006 from Malawi—honoring the memory of the black man who died Monday in Minneapolis while in police custody. "As news of George Floyds brutal murder travels around the world my son David Dances to honor and pay tribute to George and His Family and all Acts of Racism and Discrimination that happen on a daily basis in America," the 61-year-old star wrote in the caption accompanying the video, which showed David performing an emotional dance to Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us."

But many viewers cringed at her post—not so much at David's decision to dance, but at Madonna's "inappropriate" decision to put it out there, per Yahoo. "This is trash, and deeply disrespectful," one commenter responded to her tweet, asking her to donate instead to a fund that has been set up to bail out protesters in Minneapolis. The video was also called "exploitive" of her son and "tone-deaf." "I really appreciate you for allowing your son to dance away the racism for us," one eye-roller sarcastically noted. But not everyone blasted the video. "This isnt trash. Thats her son expressing himself. Let him be," one supporter commented, while another wrote: "Why is it disrespectful for Madonna to give her son a platform of 2.6M followers to express his solidarity for a cause you believe in?" (More Madonna stories.)

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