Perpetual Grammy Award winner Stevie Wonder is no stranger to using his celebrity platform to push his liberal political views. His newest tour kicked off Thursday night in Madison Square Garden where he talked about guns, racism and equal rights, according to AP [1].
After bringing his young daughter on stage to serenade her with “Isn’t She Lovely,” Wonder acknowledged special guests in the audience. He introduced family members of 6-year-old Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim. He used their presence to push for gun control, saying, “The only thing that guns do is make the gun manufacturers rich and the mortuaries richer.”
This isn’t the first time Wonder has condemned guns during a concert. In July of 2013, after the George Zimmerman verdict was handed down, Wonder told a Quebec audience [2] that he would no longer perform in Florida, as long as “Stand Your Ground” laws were in place.
“I decided today that until the 'Stand Your Ground' law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again. As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world.”
Wonder also spoke up on racism and hatred, saying, "I challenge America, I challenge the world, to let hatred go, to let racism go. That is the only way we will win as a nation and the world."
He also used his personal experience as a blind person to call for better services in New York City for disabled people. "I want there to be accessibility for anybody who is deaf, who is a paraplegic," he said.
— Kristine Marsh is Staff Writer for MRC Culture at the Media Research Center. Follow Kristine Marsh on Twitter. [3]