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Ava DuVernay is calling out Liam Neeson and Melania Trump for using #whiteprivilege.
The Director, screenwriter and producer called out actor Liam Neeson and #DonaldTrump’s wife, Melania, and compared the differences in how they are treated by the media to that of public figures of color, using #WillSmith and forever First Lady #MichelleObama as examples.
DuVernay took to Twitter on Tuesday and posted narratives in which the two would and have benefitted from their white privilege compared to their Black counterparts. DuVernay retweeted a photo of Trump modeling in a swimsuit for GQ Magazine in 2001, DuVernay wrote, “When people ask me what white privilege is … Imagine what would happen if this was Michelle.” DuVernay took on Neeson next. Neeson has recently been trying to clean up his racially charged admission that he “wanted to kill” a Black person after a close friend was raped by a black man, comparing the treatment of the actor to that of fellow A-lister Will Smith.
“When people ask me what white privilege is. Imagine if this was Will Smith,”DuVernay wrote. The 66-year-old actor has been doing major damage control this week, visiting several talk shows to explain his racist comments. Like a domino effect, the incident has also resulted in the “Taken” actor’s red carpet for his new film “Cold Pursuit” getting cancelled.
Lastly, DuVernay recognized Trayvon Martin in her final posts, who would have been 24-years-old this year. “When people ask me what white privilege is…. Imagine if this was a white boy in a hoodie with a bag of skittles who was just trying to walk home.”
She concluded with, “Sometimes it’s hard for white folks to grasp the notion of white privilege. My three posts below are real world, easy examples of how the system we live in favors some and not others. If you’d like to acknowledge Black History Month in some way, recognize this within yourself.”
