Harriet Tubman 'Sex Tape' By Russell Simmons Goes Viral

Have I told you that I love you lately?

 

Harriet Tubman relative demands personal apology from Russell Simmons for sextape

http://thegrio.com/2013/08/16/harri...logy-from-russell-simmons-for-sextape-parody/

One of the direct descendants of legendary abolitionist Harriet Tubman has launched a scathing attack on Russell Simmons’ “crude and insensitive” depiction of her great-great-aunt.

In an emotionally-charged interview with theGrio, Rita Daniels says, “When I looked at it [the Harriet Tubman sex tape] tears streamed down my eyes. This is a woman who helped people. She was not about this.”

“She was on the run from slave masters. There was a bounty on her head. For her to get into a relationship like that would have been far-fetched,” she added.

Daniels, the great-great-grand-niece of Tubman, was responding to the widely condemned parody video that portrays the abolitionist, along with a fellow slave, conspiring to make a sex tape of Tubman with her master to bribe him to protect runaways.

The video was posted Wednesday. It appeared on Russell Simmons’ All Def Digital YouTube channel.

She describes the three-minute clip as an “awful video” and “nasty portrayal” of Tubman as a “whoremonger” that has “tainted her reputation.”

Daniels, who now resides in Atlanta, but was raised in Auburn, N.Y., where Tubman settled after the Civil War, says the family is “torn by the video” which is an “abomination to my great-great-aunt Harriet’s legacy and does not depict her accurately.”

The clip has been widely condemned as distorting Tubman’s legacy and making a mockery of slave rape.

In response to the backlash, Simmons was quick to issue an apology Thursday. But Daniels says, “for the people has he most hurt, this is not enough.”

“If he really means that apology he needs to call me,” she adds. She also dares the hip-hop mogul to put his money where his mouth is and back an apology to the family with concrete action to elevate Tubman’s legacy.

“He has got to fix what he messed up by contacting the family, educating himself; [he has to] work on educating other people and by doing something positive to fix what he broke.”

“A lot of these women were married,” says Daniels. “Whenever their slave master decided he wanted them they had no choice. It was abusive. They couldn’t say no. It was survival.”

What angers her most is that the younger generation may not know enough about Tubman and her unwavering commitment to the abolitionist cause, she says. “For those people who have viewed it they’re going to think that’s what she was about.”

It comes at a particularly “bad time,” says Daniels. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Tubman’s death.

“All these things have given honor to Tubman then along comes Simmons with his negative of depiction of what she stood for.”

 

It really was in very bad taste.

 

I still wanna see those babies y'all were gonna conceive from that bass ackwards position.

 

hahah... you're kidding right? :smt043 My spidey sense tells me ur trolling this thread with that remark :mrgreen:

Can't substitute "child" for "slave" because that's a different argument entirely.

And if you're talking about law, legal rape vs. legal consent, you can make the argument that it wasn't rape based on the fact that the law of those times meant massa was just doing what he wants with his property.

Then what was it?

Obviously rape is rape. Just like consent is consent. No matter what time you're living in. If someone forces themselves on you it's rape. If you're two adults having sex, it's consensual. And often in the latter scenario, the woman gets the ball rolling.

Even back then, among "powerful" men and "kept" women.

It sounds like you're saying because a slave "couldn't" refuse, she couldn't consent, which completely leaves out her motives. Even if she initiates, she can't consent. That doesn't make sense. These were people, and cultures, as complex then as they are now.

Just because the motives were messed up, doesn't mean it wasn't consensual. Motives are often messed up, even today.

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

This is an interesting discussion for me because I also grew up with the myth that the era of slavery was end-to-end "noble struggle" for black folk. It wasn't. There were informants, fools, whores, drunks, color-line snobs, as well as people like today's black people: 100% noble :mrgreen:.

A lot like today's racial equation, there were outrages and moral weaknesses being perpetrated all over the place ...with all the benefit flowing in one direction, and all the pain and frustration flowing in the other.

I think a more realistic perspective helps because then you can reconcile it with what you know of human nature. Know the terrain, and you have a more realistic appraisal of the challenges

 

Surely I will disappoint then. We could do bass ackwards position all day everyday and then some.
Baby batter don't work on this uterus.
I put a stop to that shit long ago.

Teehee.

Incidentally...
Which position are you referring to?
I'm not sure if I'm a whore or if my memory is bad
Heh
.

 

:smt043:smt043:smt043

You my dear are the comic relief I so crave at the end of a long Monday! :smt058

 

Looking back when I was a kid, I like to refer to my mother as a 'benevolent dictator'. I thought I had the 'freedom' to do basically whatever I wanted, but in hindsight my 'freedoms' were based on the RULES she laid down. If I could operate within those rules, life was cake.

If I didn't she was on my ass.

As her child I wasn't a slave but I was definitely the subordinate in that relationship, as most children are.

Slaves had no currency or individual agency in the antebellum South. Whatever relationships they had within the slave/master construct were based upon how they were allowed to behave by their particular slave owner.

For instance being one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves at Monticello was probably a completely different experience than any other plantation in the South, but even the direct descendants of Sally Hemmings and Jefferson had only slightly elevated slave privileges.

The notion that a Black female slave could manipulate and have the pimp hand in any relationship with a slave owner is a myth.

If such a relationship existed, it was only because the slave master allowed it to be, not because the slave could pack up one day with their family and say, 'I'm out', or because the slave had some perceived 'control' over the slavemaster, which was impossible.

Just because a woman lays back and physically spreads her legs doesn't mean she consented to being fucked.

I've read stories of rape victims who decided among a list of options, among them being killed immediately or beaten to a pulp and forced to submit, 'allowing' their rapist to penetrate them without fighting was considered the safest option.
Did these women consent to sex?? Hell No.
However sometimes passivity is a manifestation of the survival instinct.

You can't apply normal rules of human relationships when one person is the legal property of another.

 

What about the "bucks"? Are you saying you believe that male field slaves back then had the same mindset & motivations as black males today, especially in regards to how some gaming black males see & use white females as a stepping stone to better status? So some male field slaves were thinking " I'm tired of this field nigga shit. My black ass should be living that house nigga life. How can I make a come up? Hmmm. I know!! I'll make moves of master's daughter or even better his wife. Get all in her head & shit, give her some attention, get her hooked on this dick and shit and a nigga will be moving on to that house nigga status. Or better yet...get that white woman pregnant. Yeah. What better way for a nigga to get his freedom than to knock-up a white woman because they will want me to be a responsible father and be in that baby's life. Can't do that unless I'm free. And of course you know that means I'll have to marry that white woman, making me one of the family. Come up like a mothafukka!!!" :smt023


:shock:


Any black man thinking like that back then was not only pretty much a dumb black man but also a soon to be dead black man.

 

hahahha. :mrgreen: Yep, that's exactly what I was trying to say

 

And on the off chance you are being serious, brake down all the "benefits" for a black male slave having sex with a white woman during the slavery era?

 

The one where "AB" was lying face down and "you" were lying on top of him.

 

cenk keeps kissing russell's buttt.

He was on there about sagging pants as well.
Russell is wrong on both accounts.