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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be absolutely disgusted with Bim Adewunmi's article?

69 replies

CoffeeMilkNoSugar · 28/10/2017 13:15

Re Harvey Weinstein.

I don't even know how to explain all the reasons why her article made me so angry. Hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and/or raped, and Adewunmi's problem is that they were all white. So apparently it is racist not to molest black women now? In her article, she had basically offended both white and black women.

Urgh. What a vile creature.

OP posts:
InsomniacAnonymous · 28/10/2017 13:25

Where did you read this article?

MargaretTwatyer · 28/10/2017 13:26

It's competitive victimhood. It happens all the time these days and it's pretty stomach churning. Whenever things like this happens you get people trying to claim that it's actually a group other than the real victims who are the victims. It's a technique to distract from the victims if you don't believe they are deserving of sympathy because you don't believe they are sufficiently oppressed to be worthy of it.

kmc1111 · 28/10/2017 13:27

I don't see any problem with what she wrote. There's many, many issues with a system where actresses are auditioned and/or cast because of an execs physical attraction, and she's pointing out one (racism) while fully acknowledging the other issues and the victims.

People talk about how this system affects older actresses all the time, I don't see how this is any different.

Original poster
CoffeeMilkNoSugar · 28/10/2017 13:29

So Weinstein preferred to rape white women. Does that make him racist? No, it does not, although it still makes him a monster.

(And Adewunmi calls herself a feminist... ha-ha-ha...)

OP posts:
reallyorange · 28/10/2017 13:31

Why not link to the article so we can see if you've paraphrased what she actually said?
Asking people to react on hearsay out of context makes me cross...

AfunaMbatata · 28/10/2017 13:31

Can you link to the article? Sounds awful.

TooManyPaws · 28/10/2017 13:33

I thought that there was at least one black actress who said that she had been approached/trapped by him?

Battleax · 28/10/2017 13:35

Link would be great. It sounds very odd.

realhousewifeoffitzrovia · 28/10/2017 13:36

I don’t think her point is disgusting at all. Her point is “Black women do not often come up for the kind of prestigious high-profile and award-winning roles that a producer with Weinstein’s power could offer“ which is I think pretty much empirically true.
Here’s a link to the article

Battleax · 28/10/2017 13:38

Her point is “Black women do not often come up for the kind of prestigious high-profile and award-winning roles that a producer with Weinstein’s power could offer“ which is I think pretty much empirically true.

Pegging that "point" to the HW scandal is in incredibly bad taste.

scottishdiem · 28/10/2017 13:40

Oh. My. God.

You have totally missed the point of that article.

Try this one as an introductory explainer:

www.refinery29.com/2017/10/177426/white-black-women-sexual-assault-hollywood-racism

messyjessy17 · 28/10/2017 13:45

She hasn't missed the point. The article has some relevant points but it's also quite offensive.
she singles out a particular actress to tell us she is just as much a victim of HW as someone who was raped. Because not getting cast is as bad. Hmm

scottishdiem · 28/10/2017 13:45

I thought that there was at least one black actress who said that she had been approached/trapped by him?

Lupita Nyong’o. And reinforce the point of Bim Adewunmis, the accusations by Nyong'o are the only ones that have been specifically (i.e. named) refuted by Weinstein. Probably because she was fuckable enough for him so he wants to make sure that he is addressing and working on his behaviour towards white women that one black woman that has accused him, she is totally wrong......

Battleax · 28/10/2017 13:46

The whole central thesis that sexual assault is about "fuckability" is disturbing in itself scottish.

You don't need to have Valley Girl style vapours. People are allowed to disagree. Disagreeing with you isn't "missing the point".

scottishdiem · 28/10/2017 13:51

Of course it is disturbing but it's how Weinstein viewed women. Black women not getting cast for movies because he didnt find them attractive enough assault is a story for black women.

ElizabethDarcey · 28/10/2017 13:53

Oh I am so tired of people twisting things for their own agenda. This is about women who have been raped and assaulted. Don't you dare peg anything else on to distract from these victims and this monster.

traviata · 28/10/2017 13:53

the last few lines of the article explains her point really clearly;

"But buried beneath this sickening story of one man’s abuse lies another — the problem of judging women by their fuckability and accepting that as normal, shutting down certain career opportunities preemptively and leaving the actresses who are considered “fuckable” subject to sexual harassment and assault."
"It is a horribly double-edged sword, and there are absolutely no winners."

It isn't competitive victimhood and it isn't saying Weinstein was racist because he should have assaulted black actors as well.

Battleax · 28/10/2017 13:55

No I think a few superficially linked ideas are getting tangled a bit there.

The invisibility of PoC in Hollywood is quite glaring an issue to stand alone.

Tangling it up with notions that "fuckable" women get raped, that the proof of "fuckability" is being on receipt of a sex attack, WoC have somehow been discriminated against by not being sexually attacked, etc. It's a hot mess of an article. Seriously Ill-advised.

deblet · 28/10/2017 13:57

Is it now racist to not find a type attractive? Black/brown/white etc. I don't like big muscles or blonds so not attracted physically to them but surely that's just taste? Don't we all have a type?What is obscene is that these shitty men in hollywood have so much power over others but not raping black women because he did not fancy them seems a ridiculous thing to point out.

Battleax · 28/10/2017 13:59

I feel a bit besmirched even quoting her use of "fuckable" and "fuckability" in relation to sexual assault.

This is second wave 101 stuff; Rape is not about attractiveness, it's about power.

Come on we all know this don't we?

Happyemoji · 28/10/2017 14:04

Very interesting reading she makes a good point. Why shouldn't it be spoken about.

scottishdiem · 28/10/2017 14:05

"Is it now racist to not find a type attractive?"

Well when you want to rape/assault/molest a woman prior to casting in a movie. Yes. Yes it is. Saying black women are not attractive enough to be in my films is racist.

"not raping black women because he did not fancy them seems a ridiculous thing to point out."

Until you also add the bits about casting and how he saw women. From the article:

"The frustrated director replied, “Don’t screw up the casting of this film because you want to get laid,” which apparently incensed Weinstein. After Caton-Jones was unceremoniously fired from the film following the conversation, Variety called him for a statement. He said he told the interviewer about harassment claims against Weinstein that he had heard about, ending the conversation with: “I don’t cast films according to Harvey Weinstein’s erection.”

scatterolight · 28/10/2017 14:05

Not all protected characteristics are equal. People, consciously or unconsciously, adhere to a hierarchy when they decide where their sympathies lie. For many solidarity with their race/ethnicity will trump concerns for their own gender. It's a question of priorities. As demonstrated here.

And, I might add, even more aptly demonstrated by Donna Karan in the immediate aftermath of the news before she was shamed into taking a different position.

user1471449805 · 28/10/2017 14:07

How can we be sure absolutely everyone who was hurt by this vile man has come forward?