![]() We have the same conversation after each ill-advised tweet-and no matter how hard his peers, friends and followers try to explain why he should rethink his perspective, he doesn’t listen. That pattern is not just exhausting, it’s a waste of our time. But how helpful is the cycle of outrage we find ourselves in every time he tweets something contentious? I’d argue not very. ![]() There’s plenty of value in engaging with celebrity behaviour (duh, as if I would think otherwise!). It’s about deciding what we expend our mental energy on, especially right now when there is so much that deserves our attention. And most importantly, this is a distraction from the actual issue, which is Crews' flawed understanding of racial justice and his refusal to entertain other perspectives, especially from people who just know more than he does. I’m also not sure people actually are telling him he’ll lose his career over his opinions-while he gets plenty of jokes and snarky responses, he also receives the type of thoughtful, gentle feedback that Black women rarely receive on the internet. He’s an actor and reality TV show host, which isn't exactly the career path of a person who doesn’t care what people think about him, nor one who's completely detached from material wealth. Crews consistently centres whiteness online, a wave of people reply to tell him he’s wrong and he reacts by asserting that it doesn’t matter if people like him, or if he “loses it all.” First of all, this is an obvious lie. It’s also about the way he engages with criticism-or rather, how he doesn’t. And I don’t just mean the weird, anti-Black things he says. On a more practical level, he’s also modeling exactly the wrong behaviour. By casting doubt on Black liberation as a concept, he’s opening the door for racists to use his words to actually support white supremacy. This isn’t just a different opinion-it’s actually dangerous. But it’s implied in his discomfort with the Black Lives Matter movement, and his insistence that asking for equality is the same as demanding special treatment. Thousands of people engage with his tweets, and here he is, legitimizing the All Lives Matter crowd. Crews has 1.5 million followers on Twitter. ![]() The other troubling thing about his behaviour toward Union was that he clearly didn’t understand how a space could be safe for him but not for people with less privilege or different intersections.Īnd then there’s the part where he didn’t (and still doesn’t) seem to care about the widespread impact of his words. As Wear Your Voice pointed out at the time, “it was Black women and LGBTQ+ folks who most consistently and tirelessly stood up for him, and it was this same community who so gingerly tried to call him in about his problematic comments, only to be ignored even while he continued to declare his support for us.” In March 2019, he tweeted that children who are raised without both maternal and paternal love are “severely malnourished.” When Black women and LGBTQ+ people tried to explain the problems with that perspective, he didn’t listen. It was another reminder that while Black women had been there for him, he didn’t exactly respect them in return. This was disappointing on a number of levels: Union was very supportive of Crews when he spoke out about his assault, so it wasn’t great to see that he felt zero obligation to support her-or even just to refrain from actively discrediting her. That was never my experience on America's Got Talent." He went on the say the show was “the most diverse place ever been in 20 years of entertainment.” When Gabrielle Union was fired from America’s Got Talent, reportedly because she called out sexism and racism on set, Crews’ response was to praise the show, saying, “I can't speak for sexism, because I'm not a woman… But I can speak on behalf of any racism comments.
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