Gabrielle Union is calling out the “bullshit” she experiences as a black woman in Hollywood. The “Being Mary Jane” star spoke with Harper’s Bazaar about “that sense of being hyper-visible or invisible on sets,” zeroed in on or ignored. Union asked, “When do you stand up and point out every micro-aggression, and when do you stand down so you’re not the angry black person all the time? It’s tiring,” she explained. “It feels like another job that you’re not getting paid for — that is all encompassing.”
As Ava DuVerney has said, “The onus is not on the marginalized to educate.” Still, Union has invested time and energy towards educating Hollywood about racism and white privilege. Harper’s reports that the seven-time BET Award nominee had a “productive” conversation with “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham, and hopes to have a dialogue with other women in the business who have made misguided remarks or jokes. Union would like to “help to explain the oppressive systems that have benefited and allowed them to say these careless, insensitive, and offensive things.”
Union had a very small part in Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation,” and agreed to play the role because of the platform it would give her. “I was going to then go on a press tour and be able to say all the things that I’ve wanted to say, that I’ve been saying for the past 25 years — whether that be testifying before Congress or state legislatures — to the biggest audience I was ever going to get to listen to me talk about sexual assault, and the history of sexual assault being used as a weapon of mass destruction against black female bodies,” she said. Union herself is a sexual assault survivor.
Resurfaced rape allegations about writer-director Parker and Jean Celestin, who has a story credit on the film, led to a great deal of controversy in advance of its release. “The Birth of a Nation” was a box office dud and lost all its momentum going into awards season.
Head over to Harper’s for Union’s feelings about being involved in the project in the aftermath of Parker’s scandal, her reaction to the election, and why she used to try to “minimize [her] blackness.”
Season 4 of “Being Mary Jane” will premiere on BET January 10, 2017. Union’s recent big screen credits include “Almost Christmas,” “Top Five,” and “Think Like a Man Too.”
