Committee to elect debbie holmes issued the following announcement on Feb.25.
Harvey Weinstein’s convictions for rape and sexual assault were greeted Monday with a sense of justice among many of the women whom he coerced and sexually attacked over the years. Eighteen of them got together for a conference call to discuss the verdicts, praise the six women who testified in court against Weinstein and express hope that the jury’s decision will spur continued legal and cultural change. Madison Pauly at Mother Jones excerpts the statements of several of them:
Rose McGowan: Every one of us who’s come forward, we have a name, we have a history, we have a life, we are more than Weinstein. But today because of the brave women who bared their deepest hurts for the world to see, he’s in Rikers Island. For once, he won’t be sitting comfortably. For once he will know what it’s like to have power wrapped around his neck. Today is not a referendum on Me Too. This is taking out the trash.
Mira Sorvino: I don’t think you can understand if you haven’t been through this, and haven’t gone public, how immensely difficult and life-changing it is to bring out some of the worst memories in your life into the public eye and become the fodder for debate, for gossip, even for pity…Harvey Weinstein has haunted many of our lives, even our nightmares, long after he initially did what he did to each one of us. We have finally taken that power back…To any survivor out there who is scared and hopeless and doesn’t know what to do, know that we are here for you and there is hope and love as light and community. [...]
Louise Godbold: All of the women who testified are so immensely strong and brave, and we’ve all been standing on the sidelines, cheering for them, because sadly, with the statute of limitations, many of us will not able to press all cases… They were the ones that were on trial. They were the ones whose phones were seized, whose every last photograph and email was scrutinized, their medical records, scrutinized. Harvey didn’t have to go through that. How is that fair? So we have to look at the way that we press charges, the way that we conduct these trials to find a way that is less traumatizing, so that more sexual assault survivors will have the courage to come forward and not fear that there’ll be a second violation and a second traumatization. [...]
“The smell of the slave market is upon the picture. Let me say here that the slave market of yesterday with black man and woman upon the block is “morally justified” in “Gone With the Wind,” in order that the terror of the landlords, the klan and the lynching bee of today will be favorably understood and accepted. The return of slave conditions if the objective. [
“Gone With the Wind” has made of the Negro man a grotesque and ravishing beast—a rapist, an impossibly low and debased creation for whose elevation there is no hope. It has made of Negro womanhood a wanton wench ready to accept the advances of any man.” [...]
“Gone With the Wind” is a weapon of terror against black America. It is a weapon of lies and misrepresentation calculated to turn white America away from the democratic struggle and against Negroes.”
Original source here.
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