On August 14, 2013, Russell Simmons posted these words on twitter: “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen Harriet tubmans [sic] sex diary.” Those are words guaranteed to catch one’s attention, the way a bomb going off gets attention. Simmons wasn’t lying or joking either. His latest entertainment venture, All Def Digital, had in fact produced something he called The Harriet Tubman Sex Tape.
Simmons claims that he wanted to show Tubman “turning the tables” on the slave master.
These Negroes here.
From Huffington Post:
but I still maintain that comedy should push the edge. I misunderstood the underlying implications and I'm deeply sorry for that. Because I thought the slave took advantage of and blackmailed the slave master. That's what I thought. "Django," whatever…and I liked "Django." I'm not Spike Lee. I ain't a hater. I thought "Django" was good.
These Negroes here.
Never the fuck mind that Django is fiction. I don't care if one thinks that Django was good. What kind of so called black person, descendant of enslaved Africans, doesn't understand "the underlying implications" of a sex parody of one of THE seminal black women in African-American history?
Perhaps the same type of negro that thinks comparing
their sexual prowess with to the lynching of Emmett Till
But this is not surprising when we have a generation of completely clueless young black people, many of whom think the accounts of slavery and Jim Crow are fictional accounts made for movies. It's hard to blame them when those who should know better are busy sanitizing black history in an ongoing and continuous effort to gain and maintain white acceptance. Which leads us to the second part of the original linked piece:
The movie does tell some historic truth but with an underlying message that political action is acceptable only within very narrow parameters. The son in the film goes on a journey from the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to the Black Panthers. Daniels should have just left the Panthers alone instead of depicting them as disrespectful young people who never remove their black berets and give offense at the dinner table. But he couldn’t leave the Panthers alone. If white people can be appeased with the right attitude there is no need for radical politics to be taken seriously. The Black Panthers also have to be brought low in the popular consciousness of a Lee Daniels movie.
It was the brief clip of Oprah's character saying to who I assumed to be a black panther that everything he had was because of his brother (who I assume to be The Butler). It was at that point that I understood that this "epic" about a Butler was going to be yet another broadside at black folks who wont react to racism in the "proper" manner (meek, forgiving and with a smile). Up until that point I was going to see The Butler, but decided I won't support a film that disrespected the Panthers. The Panthers for all their faults were faulty
for us and therefore deserve our respect. Not uncritical respect, but our respect.
In terms of the "all you have" comment. Harpo should have thought long and hard on that point. Isn't it SAD that a black family, indeed that black folks nation wide, depend upon the "kindness" of "benevolent" white folks for employment opportunities. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as particularly fucked up. I don't know about you, but that sounds vaguely like sharecroppers.
All I have to say to these folks is that when the next college frat does a black face party or a Republican group gets together for an Antebellum South costume party, I don't wanna hear a damn thing from these "celebrities".
