UFC: Israel Adesanya gives emotional speech about death of George Floyd at Black Lives Matter rally in New Zealand
- ‘The Last Stylebender’ talks about ‘racist, scared’ white people constantly being afraid of him ‘just cuz I’m black’
- Adesanya gets emotional because he ‘sees himself’ in ‘heartbreaking’ killing of Floyd in May
Israel Adesanya issued an emotional public speech at Black Lives Matter rally at the US embassy in his native Auckland, New Zealand on Monday.
The UFC middleweight champion (19-0), who had throughout the week voiced his displeasure at the killing of unarmed black man George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minnesota in May, said he was “p****d off” and “sick and tired” of seeing the allegedly racially charged deaths.
“[I have a] platform so I have to speak up. I’ve been doing it for like the last two weeks. You’ve seen I’ve been angry. I’m p****d off,” the 30-year-old Adesanya said to a crowd before joining a roughly 4,000-person rally.
“Wait, hold up, how many of you walk into a store and have to put your hands behind your back just so they don’t think you’re stealing?
“How many of you walk down the street and have to kind of smile and try and make the person, who you see is already scared of you ... to make them feel comfortable?” said Adesanya, adding that he had already experienced racist incidents on multiple occasions since moving to his new flat.