I.Elba : "Men Who Have Something To Hide Find #MeToo Harsh"

 We aren't the same people.

And read a history book if you want to learn about the very real and tragic history of African-Americans being routinely murdered and lynched in massive numbers at the altar of white female chastity and them "crying wolf" (and it still happens today, though the end result now tends to be false imprisonment, as opposed to being hanged on a tree. Small improvements, eh!). It's not my job to educate you. Your parents should have done that. It's not my fault you choose to revel in your own ignorance.

The entire town of Rosewood, Florida was  completely destroyed and untold numbers of African Americans killed because Fannie Taylor lied about a black man assaulting her to protect her extra-marital affair with a white man from her husband. A 150 strong posse was rounded up to destroy a black Town based on one woman's lie....I don't think the residents of Rosewood would have agreed with the motto "believe all women". Just a guess.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/03/rosewood-florida-massacre-racial-violence-reparations

The EIJ (Equal Justice Initiative) reported 4084 racial terror lynchings on African Americans in 12 Southern States between 1877 and 1950. 25% of those lynchings took place because of an accusation of sexual assault

lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/

In the notorious case of the Scotsboro Boys, 8 black teenagers (and a 12 year old black boy) were falsely accused of rape by two white women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Several of those falsely charged recieved sentences ranging from 75 years to the Death Penalty.

Morgan Freeman is an 81 year old man from Memphis, Tennessee. He's old enough to literally remember a time and place where he probably could and would have been killed because some idiotic woman like that reporter that #metoo'd him falsely decided she felt "assaulted" by him allegedlly looking her "up and down".

And this is just a small sample.Learn your history.

He actually should. I guess he could use the excuse of being Black British as opposed to African--American, but I don't even think that's a great excuse, as he's pretty well travelled and spent lots of time in America and amongst African-Americans (like shooting The Wire for years in Baltimore). 

Elba is playing respectability politics, imho (Bill Cosby used to do that as well, but that's a whole other story). He's saying what he thinks his arguably most passionate base of fans (women) want to hear and approve of. After all, he just got named  People Magazine's sexiest man of 2018. Statements like the one he made  probably serve to help his career and bottom line. And it worked...celebrity women and normal women all over social media were swooning all over him when his statement came out, and reiterated how him saying that made him even more sexy to them. So from  PR perspective, I understand why he said it.But yeah, as a black man in particular he should have a little more self-awareness about these things, imho. Maybe he knows the history and just doesn't care. He's a Hollywood star with bigger fish to fry.

"The black man must be educated about racism and the historical persecution of his race, a subject he doesn't know thoroughly and I'm more knowledgeable about", concluded the white person.

This is a very fun thread.

^^^^

I'm not African-American. But I would consider myself well read. And a history buff of sorts. Being educated or informed about a particular subject or topic isn't restricted to ethnicity or nationality. It's just about a willingness or hunger to learn

gonna have to stop you there, chief. You're blatantly ignoring the difference in power dynamics between the current situation and 19th century deep south, and you're also ignoring the fact that the women in these situations were largely free of scrutiny from their white neighbors when they pushed an anti-black narrative while the opposite was also true. I mean, are you really just going to ignore these differences and act like Spacey losing his career for raping boys is the same as a powerless black boy with no power, money, or influence getting lynched by a mob of angry racist white men is the fucking same? Ignorant as well as offensive, and a common argument used to disbelieve rape accusers might I add. The victims in these cases you keep shamelessly appealing to were all powerless and in a marginalized social minority where they enjoyed no rights, no privileges, had little money, little if any protection from authorities, no sway or influence over public discourse or opinion or policy IN ANY RESPECT. Consequently the women had absolutely no incentive to confess any falsehoods and all the incentive in the world to maintain the lie, both for their own safety if they felt a twinge of guilt and for the pursuit of their own selfish reasons if they didn't. Victims of rape and harassment/abuse/misconduct in the film industry on the contrary have very little to gain from accusing someone in power, and historically MUCH to lose (and it's mitigating factors such as these and others why I tend to believe a person when they accuse someone of rape or misconduct or why anyone with much to lose accuses someone in a position of influence--whistleblowers for example). So no, it's not the same. Aziz Ansari didn't experience a fraction of what Emmett Till did and I seriously doubt he'd ever make such an obtuse and tone-deaf comparison.

Unless you can provide any kind of evidence that isn't anecdotal and isn't from before 1950 concerning a totally separate and deep-rooted issue (seriously, you're talking about racism on such a simplistic basis-- it was a lot more than false rape allegations and the reason those cases ended in such horrifying crimes ran A LOT deeper than just "because a woman said so"), you should probably start reconsidering the viability of your position.

Putting all that to one side, my choice to believe accusers generally can be boiled down to a couple common sense points stemming from statistical probabilities and basic awareness. All my evidence is current.

1) Most cases of rape and sexual misconduct go unreported in comparison with other violence crimes due to societal pressure, backlash, post-traumatic stress, and the fear (or awareness) that reporting won't result in a conviction (less than 1% in fact). It should be apparent to anyone in the world with eyes and an internet connection that for a woman to accuse someone of sexual abuse is to historically incur public scrutiny, hate, backlash, and very little if any personal gain. There is hard statistical evidence that helps to explain this, for instance this study which found from a sampling of over 5 million tweets about rape and sexual assault that messages that undermine or question the credibility of accusers were most prevalent (46%) while messages of solidarity and validation were the least prevalent (14%). So I'd say your severely overeestimating how many people are living by the motto "believe all women."

2) False reports of sexual crimes are very low (anywhere from 2 to 10 percent). It simply doesn't happen very often, and when it does the fake accusers are often teenagers motivated to cover up things like missing curfew or skipping school and often have criminal records/histories of lying. Famous cases get sensationalized and overblown, which is why false accusations are so often talked about despite factoring very little into the issue. What ends up happening is that people like you have more sympathy for these very visible cases (mostly men) and potential others like them than the thousands of victims of sexual crimes (mostly women) that never come forward partly because of this kind of warped, misguided and misplaced sympathy. It simply doesn't make mathematical sense to keep harping on about false reporting in the name of justice and fairness whilst simultaneously totally ignoring the scores of victims whose experiences will never be blown up or sensationalized or talked about or validated or even heard. I don't know you personally and I wouldn't begrudge anyone a reasonable level of skepticism but to act like false reporting should be anything more than a footnote in this discussion is blatantly ignorant. What happened to Ansari, Freeman, and any false or discreditable accusation is unfortunate but nowhere near as unfortunate as all the sex crime victims suffering in silence and isolation. We should be talking more about them.

So, this is what it boils down to me for:
Taking into account that reporting sex crimes is incredibly difficult  for the victim (which itself accounts for why so many go unreported) and is often accompanied with mental and physiological stress, that women have much to lose and little to gain by reporting, that reporting takes tremendous courage, that believing accusers benefits victims (which represent the vast majority of accusers by virtue of basic probability) whilst disbelieving accusers harms and isolates victims, and that evidence of false reports is rare, I have to believe accusers. It's just a matter of statistical probabilities. I have to. If you believe every accuser you'll be right almost all of the time and the net result will be positive both for the accuser and for other potential accusers considering whether or not to come forward. It's possible to do this and still maintain a healthy level of skepticism, which is what most people did in response to those Ansari and Freeman articles and their careers were almost entirely unaffected. They're going to be just fine.

pupdurcs

I'd add all the accusers who just want attention from the media and/or money from the person they accused.

Actually anyone could get in an elevator or something with another person and accuse him/her of sexual harassment. Obviously the police won't find any evidence, but reputation will be damaged and suspicion will follow him/her forever.

just because someone can do something doesn't mean they will. And which accusers are getting money?? Most women that have reported sex crimes against people in positions of power LOSE money, and influence, and gigs. They're blacklisted, not given payouts.

Lots of people sign an extrajudicial agreement. Many times is to avoid bad publicity.
Or sometimes it's an ex trying to get more money from a divorce.
Don't tell me these things don't happen, and they aren't rare either.