Beyonce’s Response To The Recent Shootings Crashed A Server

Shortly after the news broke about the back-to-back shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling in Minnesota and Louisiana yesterday, Beyonce hopped on her laptop or whatever she uses to write down her thoughts (they may just get digitally sent over a wifi signal from her brain to a massive computer in The Beyhive, I don’t know) and released a statement on her website. She also threw up a message on Instagram pushing people to her website to read the statement and “turn anger into action.” Said action included urging people to contact their congressperson, as well as links to both the Minnesota state legislature and Louisiana state legislature. Beyonce covered it all. The only problem is, once people tried to turn their anger into action, they were met with a 404-error.

According to Mic.com, when people went to contact congress via ContactingTheCongress.org, they didn’t get farther than a blank page and the internet equivalent of shrugging shoulders or “Um…..“. Apparently enough people did what Beyonce said and the website crashed under the weight of the traffic.

I think Beyonce just broke the internet. pic.twitter.com/7HiV0Bj7nT

— Dennis Jansen (@dennisjansen) July 7, 2016

As for the statement that crashed the website, here it is:

We are sick and tired of the killings of young men and women in our communities. It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they “Stop killing us.” We don’t need sympathy. We need everyone to respect our lives.

We’re going to stand up as a community and fight against anyone who believes that murder or any violent action by those who are sworn to protect us should consistently go unpunished.

These robberies of lives make us feel helpless and hopeless, but we have to believe that we are fighting for the rights of the next generation, for the next young men and women who believe in good.
This is a human fight. No matter your race, gender, or sexual orientation. This is a fight for anyone who feels marginalized, who is struggling for freedom and human rights.

This is not a plea to all police officers but toward any being who fails to value life. The war on people of color and all minorities needs to be over.

Fear is not an excuse. Hate will not win. We all have the power to channel our anger and frustration into action. We must use our voices to contact the politicians and legislators in our districts and demand social and judicial changes.

While we pray for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, we will also pray for an end to this plague of injustice in our communities.

Click in to contact the politicians and legislators in your area. Your voice will be heard.

Beyonce also projected the names of victims of police brutality (leading with Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) during her performance in Glasgow, Scotland last night and paused for a moment of silence. Jay-Z also sort of gave a statement of his own by releasing a song about police brutality called “Spiritual” on Tidal. It’s Jay-Z’s first release in three years, and he explains that he had been working on it since before the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. He adds:

“I’m saddened and disappointed in THIS America – we should be further along. WE ARE NOT. I trust God and know everything that happens is for our greatest good, but man…it’s tough right now. Blessings to all the families that have lost loved ones to police brutality.”

Eventually someone fixed ContactingTheCongress.org, and it’s back up and running. So if contacting the congress (dot org) is something you want to do, you can do that now. Although someone might also want to contact them and refer them to a good designer, because damn if their website isn’t giving me late-90s GeoCities flashbacks with that WordArt and gradient fade.

Pic: Splash