Another White actress is in hot water for racial insensitivity in the name of feminism. Meryl Streep and her co-stars, including Carey Mulligan, were photoed wearing shirts that read “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave,” and now Black Twitter is pissed.
The shirts are a part of a marketing campaign for Streep’s upcoming film, Suffragette, which chronicles the beginning of the British women’s suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. The veteran Hollywood star plays political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, from whom the shirt’s quote derives.
Pankhurst once wrote, “Know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion. I would rather be a rebel than a slave.”
Critics of the shirt argue that its mention of slavery is minimizing and even ignoring the seriousness of chattel slavery that African slaves were forced to endure not long before the women’s suffrage movement began.
Another issue that some have is that based on the film’s previews and the recounting of those who have attended a screening of Suffragette, there are no Black people in the film. This is problematic because Black women were very active in the suffrage movement during that time.
Streep has yet to respond to the backlash, although she has been retweeting some of the news coverage on the public’s outrage.
The actress’ blunder is similar to that of other White female celebrities who have recently been criticized for feminist remarks that were deemed racially insensitive. Earlier this year during Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech, she said that it’s time for people of color to fight for women’s rights, which many felt insinuated that Black women were excluded from the group of women who need to be fought for.
Last month, “General Hospital” actress Nancy Lee Grahn criticized Viola Davis for mentioning race in her speech after her history Emmy win. Grahn had tweeted, “Emmys not venue 4 racial opportunity. ALL women belittled.” Many Black women feel White feminists exclude them from the movement, and yet, Davis acknowledged that Grahn’s rant happened because she “didn’t feel she was included.”
