Oh Russell Simmons!
The music mogul has put his foot in his mouth AGAIN! A few weeks ago Russell Simmons received huge backlash from the public after co-signing and issuing an inappropriate parody video of Harriet Tubman on youtube. As a result, Simmons lost a few of his dedicated fans along with their respect as many people deemed it to be offensive to Tubman’s legacy and contribution to the civil rights movement.
Simmons appeared on the Arsenio Hall late night show where he talked about the incident and rather than win back fans with a sincere apology, he put his foot in his mouth yet again. Simmons first began by saying:
“It was probably the worse idea of my life. I didn’t produce it or write it but I gave access to it and I let it play and most people didn’t see it, but complained about it. “
” There was this really bad taste, and I’ve done alot of things in bad taste… but this particular piece when I understood how hurt people were and I pulled it down immediately I’ve never pulled down a piece of content. “
” ..It was this idea that this slave took advantage of a slave master and black-maled him and it really struck a nerve in people and hurt their feelings. So I pulled it down within a few hours of it going out and I tried to move and I mean you know certain people [and of course everyone has the right to be as outrage as they want]; they were outraged and they didn’t want to let it go.”
Here comes the fatal blow:
” You know, I didn’t get any calls from any civil rights leaders… they just said we accept your apology because before they even knew about this I had apologized. But alot of these “Do Nothing Negroes” they were very angry and kept talking and it’s been very tough for me.. They tried to turn me into ‘Paula Deen’.
Sidebar: Oh Russell. You might want to pay closer attention to the public opinion the next time you intentionally blame ‘your own race‘ for ‘your own mishaps‘. There were more than 3 shades of color folks who were in a dis-agreeance with you but you probably was to busy meditating or engaging in yoga to notice.
While I loved to write a paragraph on Simmons shameful ignorance, I’ll leave my thoughts right there. SMH!