25-year old Canadian singer-songwriter and actor Justin Bieber has called out himself over the use of racial slurs in the past while instigating his followers to stand against racism in all its forms.
“I’m determined this holiday season to take ownership of all my shortcomings and work on them for myself and the ones I love! What is your goal?” the star wrote on Instagram.
“When I was young I was uneducated and found myself saying really hurtful things not knowing the power of my words,” he captioned a follow-up post. “Racism Is still very prevalent and I want to use my voice to remind we are all human being and all of EQUAL VALUE BEFORE GOD!”
One of such times when he “uneducatedly” made use of such slurs was in 2014 when a video of the artist emerged which showed him as a teenager telling a racist joke with the n-word in the punchline.
“I’m very sorry,” Bieber told the Associated Press at the time. “I take all my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable behavior.”
“I thought it was OK to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but I didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance,” the statement continued. “Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologized for those wrongs. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologize again to all of those who I have offended.”
