Last week Russell Simmons stepped away from running his empire after Lena Horn's granddaughter, writer Jenny Lumet, accused him of sexually assaulting her back in the 90s, prompted by Russell's denial of another woman's accusations against him [click
here if you missed that].
Now actress / activist Amanda Seales adds her name to list of women sexually harassed by Russell Simmons...
PSA: For anyone who says, “Why’d they wait so long?” You wait because as a woman raised in a patriarchal, “Bros before Hoes”, sexist, “but what were you wearing” society you understand power dynamics and that even when there are witnesses to any level of sexual harassment/assault it will always be you who is questioned for incurring the offense. You wait because you know your vision is bigger than their indiscretion and refuse to let it derail you from your goals. You wait because you don’t even want to acknowledge the fuckery for longer than you have to when you know the odds are there will be no consequences, you’ll be dismissed, or worse defiled yet again and would rather get on with the positive things in your life. You wait because, especially when it’s a black man of prestige, you are conditioned to not speak defamatory truths for fear it will undermine their contributions to the community. Lastly, you wait, because you don’t even wanna believe it ya damn self. No matter how seemingly benign or intrusive, no one wants to endure this, particularly in professional settings. Yet, so many of us have so many of these stories and we come to operate like a clandestine anti-#creeplifes coalition of alerting others to, “watch out for so and so”. Let that be no more. It is not okay. It is not the culture. It is not your fault. Expose them. #igstorygems
A post shared by amandaseales (@amandaseales) on Dec 1, 2017 at 1:38pm PST
