If there's one thing Russell Simmons accomplished yesterday, it's that we are all now fully aware of the All Def Digital YouTube channel. But for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, the Def team uploaded a three-minute skit that was everything except funny and has the black community, celebs and activists alike, and anybody with taste, in an uproar.
The plantation-era parody, which Russell originally tweeted was the "funniest thing [I've] ever seen" sees Harriet Tubman seducing the "massa" with sex while a fellow slave secretly videotapes from the closet. The mission: blackmail him into letting her start the Underground Railroad. With dialog like "oooh Ms. Harriet, drop it like it's hot girl!" and Harriet telling her owner "All these years, I've been acting like I didn't enjoy our special time together. But tonight, that's all gonna be different," all of the outrage is really surprising, isn't it?!
John Legend, Dream Hampton, and Roland Martin are just a few of the celebrities who reacted on Twitter in the wake of the skit's release, and a petition on Change.org was immediately started to have it taken down. Russell complied, and has since issued an apology: "My first impression of the Harriet Tubman piece was that it was about what one of actors said in the video, that 162 years later, there's still tremendous injustice. And with Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master? I thought it was politically correct. Silly me." You can read the entirety of his apology here on Global Grind.
While All Def Digital has removed the video, you can still watch it at your own risk here. Prepare to facepalm.
[via Global Grind]
