Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, was featured in a sit down discussion with reporter Jim DeRogatis and writer Jamlah Lemieux. The topic of conversation revolved around Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly, DeRogatis’ new book. During the conversation, Burke brought up Ava DuVernay and praised her for strongly taking a stance when it mattered most.
“We had a Time’s Up situation where the black women in Time’s Up came out in support of #MuteRKelly. What that took is another conversation. Prior to that, I had one-on-one conversations with black women in Hollywood and black women in music because folks were doing stories and they wanted a prominent black woman to go on record and talk about it. The only one who would do it was Ava DuVernay. The only one.”
She then continued on to explain how the support of black female singers is highly important but more needs to be done.
“I asked a singer who I didn’t even think could have a connection to him, and she said, ‘Well, I don’t know, because we share some writers.’ Another woman said, ‘I would love to, but the backlash I would get on Twitter, I’m just not ready for it.'”
