showman91 said: "@ctorres You may not have called anyone names, but whether you've intended to or not you have trivialized the claims of lots of the people who have chosen to do something brave and come forward. I know because I have already spoken to a reporter about my experiences surrounding this issue. Personally, Ifeellike your contributions to the conversation are solely to get a rise out of people."
See, I feel like the protest itself trivialized the claims of the assistants. It really felt like, from my perspective as an outsider, that the protest's organizers co-opted the assistants' claims of abuse and used it to further a totally separate agenda that was more centered on issues that were personal to them.
As a thought experiment, imagine if in the immediate aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault stories breaking, Hollywood actors staged a protest where Demand #1 was "Remove Harvey Weinstein from the Producers Guide, or donate a LARGE sum of money to BIPOC organizations". How would the women he sexually assaulted have viewed that demand? How would they have viewed the fact that demands #2 through #6 addressed an issue that had nothing to do with their personal victimization? To me, that would feel insulting.
That's the lens I'm viewing this through. The assistants, after years of essentially being ignored by the public, are finally having their reckoning. And the first protest in the aftermath pays basic lip-service to the abuser, but makes absolutely no mention of the abused themselves, and offers no steps to rectify the systemic issues that led to their abuse.
Updated On: 4/24/21 at 11:36 AM
