Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General of the State of New York resigned today.
Schneiderman well known in the state, as a champion of women’s rights. The man who legal action against filmmaker Harvey Weinstein and one of the male faces of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.
Four women, strangers, spoke to the The New Yorker Magazine. What they have in common is violence at the hand of Schneiderman. The Democrat was a strong critic of President Trump.
The allegations are shocking, and the Attorney General resigned three hours after the story was released.
Claire Foy and Matt Smith in “The Crown”(Credit: Netflix/Robert Viglasky)
Netflix’s ‘THE CROWN’ literally revolves around Claire Foy and she was paid less than Matt Smith, who played her husband
By: Erin Keane/Salon.com
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but women are angry. We are fed up; we have declared #TimesUp on the grabbing and the assaults and the demeaning comments and the gendered expectations in our workplaces. We are tired of being told we are worth less than our male co-workers, both explicitly and implicitly, and when we fail to rectify that through sheer will alone we are tired of being told we must not have wanted it badly enough. And when you’re already angry and fed up with pushing this boulder up a mountain every day with no summit in sight, one small bit of news can feel like enough to make you want to turn around and hurl the rock as hard as you can down the mountain, devastation in your wake be damned.
According to Variety, the producers of “The Crown,” speaking on a panel in Jerusalem earlier this week, admitted that Claire Foy, star of two seasons of the Netflix historic drama and winner of a Golden Globe for her spot-on and humanizing portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, was paid less than her co-star Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip.
Foy plays the title role — the Queen is both a person and the office, which hits at the heart of her character’s conflicts — and yet Smith, because he came into negotiations with a higher profile as a former “Doctor Who” star, pulled in the higher salary.
Asked whether Foy was paid the same as Smith, the producers acknowledged that he did make more due to his “Doctor Who” fame, but that they would rectify that for the future. “Going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen,” said Mackie.
Oh, good — except Foy and Smith won’t be around to enjoy their equal financial footing in the workplace. The series is jumping ahead in time for season three, replacing the principal cast members with older versions of the royals. Never mind that Netflix wouldn’t have a successful show to time-hop ahead in without Foy’s cutting precision and her brilliant command of her character, which manages to evoke Elizabeth’s stiff persona without ever veering into cheap parody, and while adding layers of subtle emotional texture and intellectual dimension. Smith did fine work as Prince Philip, but the show isn’t called “The Consort Crown,” nor should it have been. Smith’s role was always secondary to Foy’s, and even in his most brilliant scenes, she remains at the center — the very heart — of the production.
Haven’t webeen here already? How loudly do we have to ring the shame bell at producers before they stop underpaying their female talent?
The pushback I am seeing — even among men who agree that the gender pay gap is bad — is that of course Smith could command a higher salary. That’s just how it works! He did four years as the Doctor on “Doctor Who,” after all, between David Tennant and Peter Capaldi, which is a big deal to a certain slice of TV fandom. Foy’s been no slouch herself — before “The Crown” she played Anne Boleyn on the highly-acclaimed, and Golden Globe-winning, limited series adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” for one — but yes, if you want to pit two names against each other in the salary negotiation game, Smith came in with a bigger stick. Never mind that Foy herself had no shot at that coveted Doctor spot until now — Jodie Whittaker is the first female Doctor in “Who” history, and she had to fight to get paid the same as her male predecessors. Yes, they were going to pay a female Doctor less. Is anyone surprised?
Women also don’t advocate for themselves, or their agents don’t, is one lame excuse I am tired of hearing. When Jennifer Lawrence penned her blistering takedown of the gender pay gap in Hollywood two and a half years ago, she wrote about learning that her male co-stars made more than her through data revealed in the Sony hack, not through any kind of transparency in the workplace.
A major corporation has to be digitally infiltrated and have all of its sensitive information stolen and exposed to the world — that’s what it can take for women to even know they are being paid less in the first place.
When Lawrence wrote about confronting her gender pay gap, she blamed herself. “I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled,’” she wrote. Can you imagine a world in which women who insist on their own worth don’t have to overcome unspoken, often invisible sexist assumptions first? I’ll wait.Foy’s not the first woman who’s seen a show take off on the strength of her performance and underpay her for it.
“Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo explained in detail how hard she had to work to get paid what she is worth to the show that also bears her character’s name:
For me, Patrick [Dempsey] leaving the show [in 2015] was a defining moment, deal-wise. They could always use him as leverage against me — “We don’t need you; we have Patrick” — which they did for years. I don’t know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that. At one point, I asked for $5,000 more than him just on principle, because the show is Grey’s Anatomy and I’m Meredith Grey. They wouldn’t give it to me. And I could have walked away, so why didn’t I? It’s my show; I’m the number one. I’m sure I felt what a lot of these other actresses feel: Why should I walk away from a great part because of a guy? You feel conflicted but then you figure, “I’m not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.”
Pompeo is the highest-paid actress on TV now, but she had to fight for it, despite the fact that the show that actually does revolve around her is a long-running success. What would happen if producers set their salary baselines at what they were willing to pay the women at the top of the cast? Did Matt Smith’s “Doctor Who” fame make “The Crown” a success? No. What’s even more insulting is that “The Crown,” like “Grey’s Anatomy,” is a show that female fans have championed. Shouldn’t the women who make these shows come alive for us get the biggest reward? It’s too late for Foy on “The Crown,” which is a shame, though it sounds like the women coming after her will be treated fairly. Here’s hoping Foy’s next workplace won’t need to be shamed into compliance, too.
Solving the gender pay gap
How should a company address unequal pay? For former Netflix CTO and author Patty McCord the answer is easy: give women a raise. McCord joined Salon’s Alison Stewart on “Salon Talks” to discuss her new book “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility,” which highlights guiding principles for building a high-performing workplace culture. Distilling lessons from her 14 years as Netflix’s chief talent officer, McCord offers business advice, including how to level wage inequality and build a more inclusive company culture, especially amidst the #MeToo movement. “Write some checks,” McCord responded when asked about how to address the wage inequality. In the end, the numbers will balance out, she says. Many male leaders don’t want to have the conversation because that would mean admitting weakness. McCord shared this story. “I had one CEO tell me one time that ‘Oh I couldn’t do that my lawyers wouldn’t like it.’ And I’m like ‘why who’s gonna sue you because you gave them a raise?’ And he goes, ‘Well they’d know I was wrong.’” Watch the video above to hear McCord’s analysis on why the gender pay gay remains one of the biggest issues facing human resources departments.
The case of a relative handslap for a repugnant act by a former student illustrates how white privilege can work
By: Blue Telusma/ The Grio
This week 18-year-old Brianna Brochu learned white privilege has it’s perks, particularly when it comes to the criminal justice system.
Monday, the former University of Hartford student — who was notoriously accused of harassing her Black roommate by smearing bodily fluids on the girl’s backpack and tampering with other items – received a special form of probation that could allow her to avoid a criminal record.
Her former roommate, Chennel “Jazzy” Rowe, attended Brochu’s hearing in Superior Court in Hartford and told Judge Omar Williams that she did not oppose Brochu’s request for accelerated rehabilitation. Brochu will have to perform 200 hours of community service — including 50 at a literacy organization in Greater Hartford and 50 at a social services group. If she completes those requirements and stays out of trouble, the charges of breach of peace and criminal mischief will be dismissed after two years.
Minority voters are watching how conservatives treat my old boss, the former RNC Chair.
By: Doug Heye-Daily Beast
The news that former RNC Chairman Michael Steele was criticized on the stage of the Conservative Political Action Committee should not have been a surprise. For 15 years, Steele has had his race used against him, with the bipartisan critics and the media often amplifying the notion that he has to be kept in his “place.”
I know first hand, having worked on Michael Steele’s 2006 Senate race and at the Republican National Committee while Steele was chairman. But while I had come to expect it from his liberal opponents, I’m distressed to see the “conservative” movement echo these lines.
It began back in the 2002 Maryland Gubernatorial race, when Steele was candidate for lieutenant governor. The liberal editorial page of the Baltimore Sun questioned Steele’s credentials, saying he brought “little to the team but the color of his skin.” Four years later, the Sun was at it again, patronizingly terming Steele a “likable man and persuasive speaker” – articulate and clean, anyone?
Steny Hoyer, the House Minority Whip has called Steele “slavish”—for which he had to apologize— while Maryland State Senate President Mike Miller called Steele “Uncle Tom.” The Democratic National Committee, in a 37-page memo by Cornell Belcher sought to “turn Steele into a typical Republican candidate — as opposed to an African-American.”
When Steele ran, successfully, for RNC chair in 2009, the dirt continued to be thrown at him. In 2009, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough declared that “Republicans are learning right now, that sometimes being black isn’t enough. They thought ‘we’re going to get a black guy to run our party.’”
Always outspoken, but also a former seminarian, Steele handled this with a characteristic mix of class and combativeness. But even as he was able to deal the slings and arrows coming his way, the comments raised serious questions about how much of the political universe views race.
With the communications director of CPAC declaring, from the stage this past week, that Steele was elected as RNC chair “because he’s a black guy,” it raises even more serious questions about how Trumpian tribalism has quickly become the rule of law within a large segment of the GOP.
This is terrible for our party.
While Republicans may see speaking to minority audiences as a low priority, they should realize that minorities are closely watching them. For African-Americans to see the man who is likely the most prominent African-American Republican on the airwaves, treated this way, is another sign of a Republican Party that is not interested in winning their votes. CPAC is an event I used to attend nearly annually but have not in several years. Over time, the conference has taken more and more of a tribal posture, seeking to cast out what it decides are “bad” conservatives in favor of “good” conservatives with a roster slouching towards the extreme. Last year it was Milo Yiannopoulos, who was ultimate disinvited from CPAC after sponsors balked. This year, it was Marion Le Pen of France’s National Front, whose politics are so controversial in her home country that French rocker Johnny Hallyday had the family banned from the funeral. Unlike Yiannopoulos, Le Pen was not disinvited. Instead, she was welcomed as a hero, if not the conquering one.
Of course, CPAC’s conquering hero is clearly Donald Trump. Just two years after canceling his 2016 speech under the threat of a walk out, Trump has become the belle of the ball, fully in control of an adoring audience all too happy to boo Senator John McCain and other Republicans who don’t sufficiently grovel to him.
Does anyone honestly believe that these comments would have been said about Steele had he been a Trump acolytes instead of a detractor? The obvious and honest answer is no. That may be fine if Trump is enjoying high popularity. But he is not. He is in a politically tenuous position—with low popularity ratings and an ever-encroaching Russia investigation—not the position of power.
All of which puts the GOP in precisely the position many believed the party was heading the day before Trump’s surprise election. It also means that whenever Trump is no longer president, the GOP will still be divided, with limited desire or effort to appeal to minorities, and no road map forward.
They will need—and should want—people like Michael Steele to help move beyond these kinds of moments and re-find their way.
UPDATED:A Swedish actor has complained of discrimination after he was told he “can’t be black for the Greek market”, in an e-mail rejecting him for a role in an Ikea advert. But the casting company says he was put forward for the job.
Fernando, a Stockholm-based stand-up comedian and actor, was cc’d on an e-mail from the flat-park furniture giant’s UK-based casting company to his Stockholm agent.
Fernando said Ikea’s press office had been understanding.
“He can’t be black for the Greek market Sorry,” the e-mail read.
“I was sad and angry,” Fernando, who doesn’t want his surname published, told The Local after SVT first broke the story. “It’s common that these things happen, saying it to your face, but not actually to get it in an e-mail.”
But Tracie Saban, one of the owners of the casting company, Crocodile Casting, said that Fernando was in fact put forward for the job, along with another black actor and an Arab man despite not fitting the brief, “just to expand it a bit”.
“We saw his video upload and put it on our link which we sent to our client,” she said. “He knew he was put forward for the job, so for him to say that is a lie. Nobody got the job. It was cancelled in the end because of script changes.”
In early November, Ikea began looking for Swedish actors who could star in an advert to be broadcast in Greece before November 24th, the date of the so-called “Black Friday” shopping festival.
“The actor needs to be really good at comedy, with a dry sense of humor,” the brief read next to a link to the Youtube video below.
Although the brief seemed to specify a white person who would suggest a more stereotypical image of “Sweden” to a Greek audience, Fernando thought he met enough of the requirements to apply.
“I said, so I’m a stand-up comedian, and I sent a link to them of my showreel,” he said.
A day later, Fernando was included in the e-mail to his agents.
Saban denies his claims that Crocodile casting was “not polite” when Fernando rung to complain.
“My partner was almost in tears. She spoke to him for an hour on the phone,” she said. “He got his apology on bended knees. We felt so bad that he felt that that was a racist comment. It wasn’t at all, it didn’t come from any bad place in our heart, because we’re not like that.”
She said that after the phone conversation and an e-mail of apology, Fernando had seemed happy until he went public three months later.
Ikea told SVT that the company had indeed included skin-color suggestions in the brieffor the advert.
“Sometimes you are looking for a blond man. Sometimes you are looking for a dark-haired woman, an Asian one or a South American,” Jakob Holmström, the company’s press spokesman, explained.
“There’s nothing unusual about that in itself. What’s unfortunate is the way this was formulated when he got a rejection.”
Fernando’s agent Fia Hammarström, who is part-Thai, said she was considering dropping Fernando for going public with his complaint.
“This will hurt other people in the agency as well,” she said. “I have 42 people in my agency and I know how the casting companies work, and they will be afraid to take him in.”
Saban said her and her partner were upset at the way “a very snappy e-mail with bad grammar” had been used to stir up a media controversy.
“It’s been misconstrued and exaggerated to make us look like racist casting directors, which we’re not because we push for all inclusive casting all the time, especially in this country, we’re always saying ‘can we bring multi-ethnic people in?’.”
She said this even applied to the Greek market. “We’ve done loads of commercials for Greece where we cast black actors,” she said.
Fernando said Ikea’s press office had been very understanding, but he had wanted to speak out because he found it frustrating that advertisers and drama producers in Sweden so rarely cast black actors in ordinary roles.
“They say they want a Swedish actor, and I came here when I was six years old, so I don’t know what more I can do to be Swedish,” he said. “It’s 2018, we are living in a multicultural country. So what is a Swedish actor? Is it a white actor?”
But it has also won plaudits for adverts which break down stereotypes and prejudices.
Its Hooray! To the Wonderful Everyday advert, which came out last November, was praised by Michelle de Leon, the founder of World Afro Day, which celebrates wild afro hairstyles, because it “shows a black family and their curly, kinky, afro hair, living the good life”.
She wrote in The Guardian that the advert had been the first that made her and her daughter “feel good to be black and British”.
“If this is a watershed moment, it’s been a long time coming,” she said.
Here’s a video of Fernando made by his agent, Hammarstrom.
There are many blacks who gave Justin Timberlake as pass (He was allowed to emulate the black culture/music) without question. He had a very rare card that allowed him to appropriate black music and culture.
In 2004, he was one half of the firestorm at Superbowl 38, where he removed Janet Jackson’s costume exposing her breast. By all accounts Timberlake distanced himself from Jackson, leaving her to take the blame for the wardrobe malfunction. Nipplegate damaged Janet Jackson career and left Justin Timberlake’s unscathed. Leaving many in the black community calling for his card.
Years have passed and Justin Timberlake hung on to his card. Welcomed at black events like the BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards where he would support issues that affect black people at the event. However, beyond the awards he was absent.
Timberlake owes much of his success to the black community who welcomed him. Today he’s finding himself locked outside in the cold.
In an ideal world his appearance at the Superbowl would have boosted sales for his newest and worst reviewed album of his career “Man of the Woods” that dropped last Friday.
Chris Edwards of the Washington Post said:Timberlake tries to make the world forget about his dud album, and about that alleged purple hologram and — oh, right — about the last time he performed at the Super Bowl, way back in 2004 when he sang, “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song,” then proceeded to rip away a significant portion of Janet Jackson’s stage costume, exposing her right breast to 90 million unsuspecting television viewers. In the months of pearl-clutching that followed, Timberlake’s career went boffo while the rest of the industry encouraged Ms. Jackson to convalesce in the void — a stark and enduring example of how our culture allows some artists (white/men) to get away with any old thing, while others (black/women) are swiftly silenced for stepping out of bounds.
Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times said : Anyone who admires the skill required to get moving parts to move together could see something in this presentation to commend. But this was music, not civil engineering. And there was simply nothing to enjoy about Timberlake’s show beyond its careful planning. The performance lacked soul, meaning, humor; it had no message, nor was it taking any stand — soft, hard or otherwise.
The singing wasn’t even that memorable, and this was after Pink’s shaky (if valiant) stab at the national anthem, which she did while she said she was suffering from the flu.
Before you get going, allow me to stop you: I don’t need every Super Bowl halftime gig to explode like the one in 2016 did, when Beyoncé showed up with a small army of dancers in Black Panther-style berets to do “Formation,” the radical black-pride anthem she’d released one day before. Yet Timberlake wasn’t forsaking politics in order to provide joy, as Bruno Mars did a few years ago. Or as Coldplay did in 2016. (If you forgot, which you probably did, it was technically Coldplay’s Super Bowl show that Beyoncé crashed.)
Or, indeed, as Janet Jackson might have if Timberlake had invited that always-vibrant performer back this year as a means of rectifying the damage her career took after the 2004 incident — even as Timberlake went on to ever greater success. No, joy was in short supply Sunday. This was a show about the dull reality of entrenched power: predictable, witless, a waste of the attention with which we all rewarded it. (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-super-bowl-justin-timberlake-20180204-story.html)
Like has album, last night Superbowl’s performance was largely panned. On Twitter there were calls for Bruno Mars and he was accused of lip syncing and controversy about his shirt.
At the end of the day, there were people who hoped for vindication or acknowledgement of Janet Jackson by Justin Timberlake. Yes, she has been banned from appearing on the Superbowl, but what if? What would it have done for Justin? Unfortunately, that act requires courage and integrity.
He was called the conscience of the conservative movement. His wife is the assistant director of an Anti abortion rally called “March of Life”
Earlier this month Westley Goodman was allegeldy discoved having sex with man on the his desk in one of the state offices.
Mr Goodman was elected to represent the 87th District, in north-central Ohio, just last year. Prior to that, he worked as an aide to US Representative Jim Jordan, a highly conservative, anti-LGBT Republican.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT advocacy group in the US, named Mr Jordan in their Hall of Shame in 2014 for attempting to block marriage equality in the District of Columbia
There were rumors about Goodman being gay. Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger heard rumors that Goodman was gay and cheating on his wife as early as May 2016, a House spokesman confirmed Tuesday. But little could be done because Goodman denied those rumors when confronted, and they never involved another lawmaker or House employees.
Cleveland.com first reported Saturday that Goodman, a married man, had sex with men while working in Washington, D.C. and sent unsolicited, sexually inappropriate messages to younger men he met in conservative circles. Goodman, 33, continued sending messages while he was a sitting legislator, men who received the messages say.
Johnny Hadlock, a former congressional staffer, told the AP he engaged in sexual banter by text and had phone sex with Goodman while the two worked in Washington in the early 2010s. He said he was furious when, years later, he saw Goodman campaigning on the issue of “natural marriage” between a man and a woman, “because I knew differently.”
“Wes is a good guy. He’s a nice guy. He’s a gregarious guy. He’s a good networker. But he’s a hypocrite,” said Hadlock, whose story was first reported by cleveland.com. “He’s engaged in things with me and with others that I know are the antithesis of what he’s publicly proclaiming and standing for in his public life.”
The Washington Post reported Friday that another conservative group, the Council for National Policy, handled internally a complaint that Goodman fondled an 18-year-old college student while he was sleeping in a hotel room at its 2015 conference.
The student’s stepfather brought details of the encounter to president Tony Perkins, who also heads the prominent Family Research Council.
“If we endorse these types of individuals, then it would seem our whole weekend together was nothing more than a charade,” the stepfather wrote to Perkins, according to the Post. “Trust me… this will not be ignored nor swept aside,” Perkins replied. “It will be dealt with swiftly, but with prudence.”
In early summer, a non-House employee came forward with evidence of computer and cellphone screenshots suggesting Goodman had been unfaithful to his wife in suggestive or explicit photos and messages. The activity involved all appeared consensual, but Goodman was called in and warned that if he ever engaged in acts with House staff or on state property, it would become Rosenberger’s business.
“Representative Goodman denied all of it and said that ‘fake screenshots’ were being circulated,”
When he resigned his House seat, Goodman said in a statement that he hadn’t served his constituents “in a way that reflects the best ideals of public service.” He has not responded to repeated requests for comment on media accounts published since then.
This story isn’t over, men are slowly coming forward saying Goodman either fondled them, had uncomfortable conversations with him. Some of the men have released explict conversations Goodman had with men on Twitter and Craigslist.
