The Rock Asks An Important Question: 'Where Is Our Leader?'

The Rock has one simple message for President Trump: "Where are you?"


In a long message posted early this morning (June 4), Dwayne Johnson went in, not directly addressing the president by name however calling out his lack of visibility at a time of mass protests and demonstrations against police violence and killings. "Where is our leader at this time?" He asked. "At this time whenever our nation is down on its knees, begging, pleading, hurt, mad, frustrated, in pain, begging and pleading with its arms out, just wanting to be heard, starting and pleading and praying for change?"


He further addressed the lack of leadership, continuing the metaphor of a nation down on its knees and wondering where the president is, knowing he may use his position attempt to unite the nation and raise the country back up. Assuming the first-person voice of the absent leader, he specifically called out failures "to do everything I can to prepare the change that is needed, to normalize equality because black lives matter."


"Where are you?" He repeated.


Last week, Johnson posted a photo of George Floyd's "I can't breathe" quote — some of his final words before dying with his neck under the knee of a Minneapolis policeman — and also a caption acknowledging that if he had "good boys cops in his family member, once a gentleman is handcuffed, on the ground, no longer a threat, with your brothers in arms standing around watching and he struggles to mention, 'please I can't breathe' once your knee is on his neck.. Not his back, yet his neck - cutting off his air. Cop code must become moral code. Ethics code. HUMANITY code."


Today's message noticed The Rock also grappling with the persistent tenor of All Lives Matter counter-arguments. "Of course all lives matter," he mentioned, nevertheless in this moment now — this defining, pivotal, explosive moment where our nation is down on its knees... — We must mention the words 'black lives matter.'"


He also painted a vivid picture of a nation united beyond a leader whose words can bring about needed change, along with because the larger actions of accountability in back of "hundreds of years of systemic infection "You could be surprised how people in pain would respond whenever you mention to them, 'I care about you,'" he mentioned, referencing protestors. (He further thanked demonstrators around the globe and called them "incredible" and "inspiring" for their cute displays of solidarity.")


In a canny bit of past presidential echoing, The Rock winded down his message by pseudo-quoting Barack Obama's 2008 line, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." The accompanying caption for his Instagram post explored that thought further. "Where are you? Because we're all here," he wrote. "Maybe one day that galvanizing leader will emerge. Either way, the process to change has already begun. #Normalizeequality #blacklivesmatter."


Watch Rocky go in — like he's cutting a championship promo in 1999 — in the complete video above.