Well, this is something you don’t see every day. Nor, is it something you want to see… well, ever. Well-known rapper XXXTentacion is under fire after releasing his latest music video. The rapper included a scene where a small white boy gets hanged while another equally small black boy watches. The video has understandably created outrage on the Internet prompting the question: Have we gone too far?

“I called a lot of parents. It was a direct booking. No one was okay with their white child getting lynched,” casting director of the video LaShawnna Stanley said. “With all the racial tension in the world right out they were nervous.” But, they eventually found a mom who was perfectly fine with her son re-enacting a lynching because she understood the video’s “vision.” “The mother of the son is very serious about acting. She’s a stage mom. She has three sons and takes them to LA to audition. She understood the vision.”

xxxtentacion music video youtube

The message of the video is that the “little white boy and black boy show innocence,” and that society has become desensitized seeing black men killed, but the imagery of a white child being hung is still shocking. The artist and director clearly didn’t have malicious motives with their use of story for the video, but does it mean it was okay to show?

The Internet is divided on the issue. Some say that it is never okay to show a child being murdered in the name of “art,” even if you are trying to create a worthy dialogue. While others think that the video is a necessary image in order to prompt a certain conversation in our racially charged society. See some of the reactions below:

https://twitter.com/quavomarshall/status/908362906953281536

So, is this art or is it an atrocity? That’s for each person to decide for themselves, but if you ask us we’d love to be able to have this conversation without watching a little boy pretend to get lynched. But, that’s just us.

Check out the video for yourself below.

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