April Love Geary, The Masked Singer judge Robin Thicke‘s fiancee, is not happy with people gathering at Huntington Beach, California to protest the state’s safer-at-home policies during the coronavirus crisis. The mother of two complained about the gatherings on Main Street, saying she is “embarrassed” to be from Huntington Beach. She called the protests “the most white privilege bullsh—.”
“I’m so embarrassed to be from Huntington Beach right now, because of all the f—ing protests going on Main Street,” Geary, 25, said in an Instagram Story video Friday, reports the Daily Mail. “Half of you old a—, privileged a— white people don’t even go to the beach! It’s the most white privilege bulls— to protest, because you can’t go to the beach!”
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Geary noted that black protesters are often met with violence from police, but the mostly white protesters in Huntington Beach were not met with the same response. “There are black people because killed and shot for nothing,” she said, later asking her followers to support causes like Black Lives Matter. She also acknowledged how some could accuse her of living a privileged life.
“I know my father is white, I’m engaged to a white man, I know my kids are white, I know I have white family members. But, I don’t use my white privilege to protest not being able to go to the beach,” she said. “I use my privilege to speak for people who can’t or are too afraid to speak.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all beaches in Orange County to be closed due to the coronavirus. On Friday, between 2,500 and 3,000 people protested the order, Huntington Beach Police Chief Robert Handy told CNN. Handy said they could not enforce the order strictly at the time because the order went into effect Friday morning. Many of the protesters who showed up did not wear face coverings or follow social distancing guidelines.
Newsom issued the order specifically for Orange County after photos showed thousands at the beaches there during a heat wave last week. Newsom called it a “temporary pause” and said the beaches could open quickly “if we can get some framework and guidelines to get this right,” reports CNN. “We just want to focus on where there’s a problem … in a smart, strategic way,” he said. “We don’t want to be heavy-handed about these things.”
Orange County officials blamed “misleading photographs” for Newsom’s decision. The Huntington City Council approved directing the city attorney to pursue legal actions related to the closures. “Given that Orange County has among the lowest per-capita COVID-19 death rates in California, the action by the State prioritizes politics over data, in direct contradiction of the Governor’s stated goal to allow science and facts to guide our response to this horrible global pandemic,” Huntington Beach Mayor Lyn Semeta said in a statement.
According to the California Department of Public Health, there are 53,616 coronavirus case in the state as of Sunday. The death toll has reached 2,215. Overall, there are more than 1.15 million coronavirus cases in the U.S. The national death toll reached over 67,000 on Sunday, reports Johns Hopkins University.
