What happened to Jennifer Lawrence in 2014 was horrific. Few of us will forget how she and dozens of other female celebrities, including Cara Delevingne, Ariana Grande and Kirsten Dunst, all had their nude photographs hacked and uploaded onto the web. British actress Emma Watson was also threatened. Lawrence summed it up at the time when she stressed: “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime.”
Sadly, it has now happened again. This time the victim is Leslie Jones, a comedian and actress who recently hit headlines after starring in the all-female Ghostbusters remake. Nude photographs of her, as well as pictures of her driving licence and passport, were reportedly uploaded onto her website on Wednesday.
The severity of the incident has been recognised across social media, with a huge outpouring of support and solidarity for Jones. People have spoken about the “disheartening”, “disgusting” and “sickening” actions of the hackers who invaded her privacy, using the hashtag #StandWithLeslie. Doubtless the authorities are also investigating.
We are right to stand with Jones. What happened to her is as vile as the attack on Lawrence and co in 2014 - in fact, it's worse. Because, while the 2014 'Fappening' was rooted in sexism, Jones's hack is two-fold.
Racial abuse has plagued Jones since her role in Ghostbusters was announced. At the time, she was called “extremely ugly”, compared to an ape, and told she was the 'source of Aids'. The abuse was so bad that Jones was driven off Twitter, after writing: “I'm not stupid to not know racism exists. And I know it will probably live on way after me. But we have to make people take responsibility for the hate they spew … Stop letting people get away with being ignorant.
“And for all the ‘don't stoop to their level people’ it's way past that. So please have a seat. Don't tell me how to react. Cause I have every right to be offended and p****d.”
We need to call Leslie Jones's nude hack what it is: a hate crime
What happened to Jennifer Lawrence in 2014 was horrific. Few of us will forget how she and dozens of other female celebrities, including Cara Delevingne, Ariana Grande and Kirsten Dunst, all had their nude photographs hacked and uploaded onto the web. British actress Emma Watson was also threatened. Lawrence summed it up at the time when she stressed: “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime.”
Sadly, it has now happened again. This time the victim is Leslie Jones, a comedian and actress who recently hit headlines after starring in the all-female Ghostbusters remake. Nude photographs of her, as well as pictures of her driving licence and passport, were reportedly uploaded onto her website on Wednesday.
The severity of the incident has been recognised across social media, with a huge outpouring of support and solidarity for Jones. People have spoken about the “disheartening”, “disgusting” and “sickening” actions of the hackers who invaded her privacy, using the hashtag #StandWithLeslie. Doubtless the authorities are also investigating.
We are right to stand with Jones. What happened to her is as vile as the attack on Lawrence and co in 2014 - in fact, it's worse. Because, while the 2014 'Fappening' was rooted in sexism, Jones's hack is two-fold.
Racial abuse has plagued Jones since her role in Ghostbusters was announced. At the time, she was called “extremely ugly”, compared to an ape, and told she was the 'source of Aids'. The abuse was so bad that Jones was driven off Twitter, after writing: “I'm not stupid to not know racism exists. And I know it will probably live on way after me. But we have to make people take responsibility for the hate they spew … Stop letting people get away with being ignorant.
“And for all the ‘don't stoop to their level people’ it's way past that. So please have a seat. Don't tell me how to react. Cause I have every right to be offended and p****d.”
For anyone who can't see the link between racism and the invasion of Jones's privacy, the hackers have made it easy. They uploaded a video of the gorilla Harambe onto her website – a direct reference to the vile comments she received earlier in the year.
We must not turn away from the difficult truth. In the same way Lawrence urged the world to look past the ‘awful’ and ‘shocking’ nature of the nude hack - and recognise it as a sex crime - so we must see the attack against Jones for what it is: misogynistic and racist.
As one person on Twitter wrote: “This ain’t ‘kids joshing round’. This is hate crime.”
What’s happening to Jones proves why we need intersectional feminism – the concept that links gender with other factors such as race or disability. It’s often dismissed as academic theory, but really what it shows are the struggles that women face when they're born into more than one minority.
In 2016, feminism is very much in the public eye. We’re all aware of #EverydaySexism - misogynistic crimes make the front pages of newspapers. But when it comes to intersectional crimes, where women are targeted not just for their gender but the colour of their skin, we still have a long way to go.
Hopefully the awful attack on Jones can start to change the way we view racial and sexist abuse - or at the very least encourage those #StandingWithLeslie to keep spreading awareness. We need to call this out and recognise it for what it is: a hate crime. And that's something the world should wake-up to. Fast.
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