Harriet Tubman 'Sex Tape' By Russell Simmons Goes Viral

http://www.idesigntimes.com/article...sell-simmons-video-youtube-shanna-malcolm.htm



Russell Simmons released a controversial Harriet Tubman sex tape video on his All Def Digital YouTube Channel. The clip, which implied that the civil rights hero slept with plantation owners in order to free the slaves, has since been taken down from the channel. However, you can view the video in its entirety here.

[YOUTUBE]1uU55OEw8Js[/YOUTUBE]

The sex tape video stars Shanna Malcolm as Harriet Tubman, who seduces the slave master while the slave hides in the closet and records the act. She then blackmails the master and threatens to release the sex tape unless he frees his slaves.

Many people immediately called the video offensive for its portrayal of Harriet Tubman as a woman who just wants sex. Clutch Magazine also noted that the actress who plays Harriet Tubman in this sex tape is a heavyset woman, which furthers another stereotype.

Even worse, plantation owners at that time were known to rape their female slaves, oftentimes in front of their husbands. This reality makes Russell Simmons' decision to create and publish this Harriet Tubman sex tape even more astonishing.

A petition on Change.org demanded that Russell Simmons remove this Harriet Tubman sex tape. Even though only 711 people signed it, the general outcry was still enough for the mogul to take the video down.

"I guess I have a sensitivity chip missing," he tweeted. "Lol. Haven't been in trouble since defjam. Sorry if people r hurt L." Russell Simmons also posted a lengthy apology for this Harriet Tubman sex tape on the website Globalgrind.com.

"In the whole history of Def Comedy Jam, I've never taken down a controversial comedian," the statement read. "When my buddies from the NAACP called and asked me to take down the Harriet Tubman video from the All Def Digital YouTube channel and apologize, I agreed.

"I'm a very liberal person with thick skin. My first impression of the Harriet Tubman piece was that it was about what one of actors said in the video, that 162 years later, there's still tremendous injustice. And with Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master? I thought it was politically correct. Silly me. I can now understand why so many people are upset. I have taken down the video. Lastly, I would never condone violence against women in any form, and for all of those I offended, I am sincerely sorry."

 

Here's his weak apology.

http://globalgrind.com/2013/08/15/i...-video-has-been-removed/#.Ugxu5x-7230.twitter

In the whole history of Def Comedy Jam, I’ve never taken down a controversial comedian. When my buddies from the NAACP called and asked me to take down the Harriet Tubman video from the All Def Digital YouTube channel and apologize, I agreed.

I’m a very liberal person with thick skin and it’s hard to offend me. My first impression of the Harriet Tubman piece was that it was about what one of the actors said in the video, that 162 years later, there’s still tremendous injustice. And Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master, I thought that was politically correct. Silly me. I guess I’m older now and instead of fighting for one piece of content, I can understand why so many people are upset. I have taken down the video. Lastly, I would never condone violence against women in any form, and for all of those I offended, I am sincerely sorry.

 

Russell Simmons is so ignorant.
The fact he would approve this video in the first place AND post it is beyond comprehension.

Black people need to be careful about peddling in racist narratives all for the sake of humor.
I don't see what's remotely funny about the concept of a Harriet Tubman sex tape, as if ANY sexual relations between slaves and their owners was consensual.:?

Russell pimps the hell out of Black people so I shouldn't be surprised he's behind this kind of bullshit.

 

That shit is ignorant, but in Simmon's wealthy privileged world, racism isn't much of an issue anymore, so it's something to laugh at.

I gotta disagree with the highlighted part tho. I'll bet plenty of slaves were clamoring to fuck their masters, for special privileges, to sic him on her enemies, for extra food, for light-skinned babies, whatever.

We see black women even in 2013, presumably at their most sophisticated, using the world of racism against black men. You can only imagine how they were when they were literally owned mind and body, illiterate, color-worshipping, jeezus worshipping, "grown children," and thus that much less worldly.

 

I think he is gonna be a really good QB

 

Uhm. To your points on consensual sex during enslavement to get "privileges"

Sorry bra, I gotta call you on that.
Fucked up thinking right there. It may NOT be rape (non-consensual sex activity) and they have WILLINGLY slept with their owner but its still a very bad practice to call this 'consensual'. It must have been humiliating as hell to know that using your body for sex was a means to an end and that it furthered animosity and an imbalance between slaves. No power there obviously in the grand picture but the power struggles between the slaves must of been an issue. Most assuredly if it meant the difference between life and death.

I think what I'm trying to say is even if the owner wasn't literally raping a slave, the only person really benefiting from acts if sex when consensual is still the owner

Fucked up no matter how you look at it. And with the premise being that people could actually OWN another person regardless of their own desire to be owned it could t be any other thing than messed up.

 

WTF???!!!! Who is the fool who would diss a figure like Harriet Tubman? Call him/her out and give negative reviews.

 

Russell Simmons was either on a substance when he greenlighted that crap or stuck on stupid. He should had done one on a conservative Black instead of a woman who freed a lot of slaves before the Civil War.

 

Corroborating the notions that blackwomen are not a symbol of beauty ,the photograph is an eye-sore for so many reasons.....With White are already the target of his affections and the beneficiaries of his wealth.....Why would a man who professes to be a voice for disadvantaged blacks use his resources to project a visual like this.....This is pitiful and guinely embarrassing to accomplished blackwomen...

 

Naah. That doesn't make sense. Consensual is consensual. Coerced is coerced. Power imbalances will always be around, whether we're talking about a secretary/boss, mail order bride/husband, whatever. Resource imbalances too

Humiliating? You mean like prostitutes around the world today? Humiliating or not has nothing to do with it. Consensual is consensual. Coerced is coerced.

It wasn't all "rape". Maybe raped minds? But that's still going on. (as well as being consensually fucked mentally)

All I'm saying is it wasn't always initiated by the guy and wasn't always coerced. Hell, I'll bet oftentimes the sex was between the slave and the son of the plantation owner a couple miles down who gave her a sly look.

There are also rumors that some "bucks" fucked ww back then (tho I question the veracity of some of that. It might just be revisionism, given the sexual racial politics of the time). But was that too rape?

 

LOL. Damn.
Fixed it.:smt101

 

All I'm saying is that consent is not always a black and white concept.
I know this because of personal experience.

As far as the prostitue thing:

Not all prostitues are ashamed of their line of work. As usual, a Puritan society with double standard about sex and having sex have turned it into something that it isn't in some instances.

 

You can't have consensual sex with someone whom you own as property.
Slaves could not have consensual sex with their masters, end of story.

 

Ok. Yeah.
Basically. This.

 

[YOUTUBE]YYmQM1NAaWY[/YOUTUBE]

 

This and this.
You can't possibly call it consensual sex, that's just plain naive.

 

I think there are many people nowadays who seem to think that black people back during slavery era had the same choice of free will that black people have today, especially when it comes to black people supporting views or activities that are viewed as oppressive to black & other minority groups. Were there black people who may have willing consented to various distasteful things they shouldn't have? Yes, but a lot of it was motivated by fear of "master" & the accepted norms of the times more so than any disdain for other black people unlike today where we have black people saying & doing backward ass crap out of some misguided sense of superiority.

 

Keyword "consented". No matter how misguided. Then as now.

Imagine you're a slave and you want your baby to be a "pampered" house slave instead of a sun-roasted field slave. Or you want your baby to have light skin and "good hair" like your best friend's baby.

You run into massa in the kitchen one day, whirl around, hike up your dress, grin over your shoulder..

...And massa says "thanks but no thanks, I'm just not that into you".

Did that slave just try to get herself raped? Or maybe it's rape only if he does the deed? :roll: Or maybe those things never happened because black women were just so much more sophisticated back then?

Even slaves had a certain amount of free will, choice and initiative. I think what you guys are trying to say is slaves couldn't say no, and even that isn't quite true.

The dif between a "good" slave and a bad one is the amount of consent, collusion, complicity, rebellion

Many were true believers. They were as complicated as humans in any time. Some, embarrassingly, fought on the side of the south in the civil war. Some black folk participate in civil war reinactments today and say we were lucky we were slaves. And make "nazi nigger" porn. And lay down with skinheads. and sit around with white men, laughing at nigger jokes, before their date with a white guy. And believe god is blonde hippie who lives in the sky

We can judge them, but to say they could never consent is naive.

Maybe your view is pre-emancipation proclamation, it's rape, but the day after, when she's a share cropper (or a secretary) it's not? :mrgreen:

Maybe your view is that slaves couldn't consent, but they could only in fact bravely resist? :mrgreen: heh heh Sounds good, but it ain't so.

Fact is, they could (and did) do both. The dif between a good slave and a bad one is the amount of consent, collusion, complicity. Then as ever

And I ask again, what about the "bucks"? :mrgreen:

 

This right here is what I'm talking about. I do not believe anyone who was a slave consented to do anything with the aim of their offspring having light skin or good hair or any other benefits. That particular fucked up mindset came about because of how some and not all slavemasters and even mistresses would treat offspring born of sexual encounters between slave & slaveowners. The slaveowners more than not created this mindset to divide slaves and encouraged it among the more weak minded & subservient slaves. The slaves didn't think of that shit.

 

If you substitute 'child' for 'slave' this whole consensual debate ends.

Not implying the mindset of a slave was childlike, only that in our society there are certain things children cannot consent to because they don't have the full rights of adults.
All relationships are a reflection of some kind of power dynamic and when one party literally has NO POWER or influence over the other, there can never be consent.

If one of the two sexual partners doesn't ever have the right to say NO, there can be no consensual sexual relationship.

That's not to say during slavery sex wasn't used potentially by some slaves to gain favor, but that's still not a consensual relationship.

As in religion where there can be no virtue without free will, you can't have the right of consent without the ability to choose not to.

Don't confuse a benevolent slavemaster with being a 'liberated' slave, which is an obvious contradiction.