Keke Palmer to National Guardsmen: Kneeling Is Not Enough for Me

The out actress implored members of the National Guard to march with protesters in solidarity.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

June 03 2020 10:12 AM EST

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During a protest against police brutality in Hollywood Tuesday, actress Keke Palmer implored members of the National Guard to leave their posts and march with the crowd in a show of solidarity. While one member of the Guard, armed with an assault weapon, said while he believed in the cause of the protesters, he couldn't abandon his post. When he knelt at the request of another protester, Palmer said, "That's not enough for me."

Palmer, the out star of last year's Hustlers, began by informing the National Guard member that there's something they could do other than to stand amid the protest with rifles.

"You have to pay attention to what's going on," she told the Guardsman. "We have a president that's trying to incite a race war."

"We have people here that need your help," Palmer said, in a video NBC News correspondent Gadi Schwartz tweeted. "This is when y'all stand together with the community, with society, to stop the governmental oppression. Period. We need you, so march with us."

When one Guardsman said that he stood with her and the cause but that his job was to protect the area, she explained it was the protesters who needed protecting and not the buildings.