MovieChat Forums > Morgan Freeman Discussion > I must be missing something

I must be missing something


I'm not going to opine on the innocence or guilt of Morgan Freeman but I find it very troubling that mere accusations are enough to cost someone their career, their reputation and their freedom, with absolutely no physical evidence (DNA anyone?) presented.

It's a dangerous path this nation is going down when someone's word can destroy a person and even send that person to jail. We need to look hard at personal motivations (money, politics, history) of an accuser before we pass judgment. It should chill everyone to the bone that you can get convicted over words and nothing more.

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People use "witch hunt" from time to time as an analogy and often get it wrong.

Here it's applicable. During the Salem witch trials, people suddenly believed that everything that went wrong was somehow the result of witches. Even the accused often were no longer sure.

Today, there is a frenzy of revisionism where women (in this movement) who never felt violated before are now giving this some more thought and, instead of using the metric of normal human behavior, are now falling prey to social justice definitions of what defines harassment.

The meetoo movement demands that "every woman must be believed". A purely misandrist statement. Imagine if a men's movement automatically dismissed women's complaints the same way. There are a lot of documented incidents where women were proven guilty of making up rape claims. Scary to imagine men in prison today because of a lie.

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Gary Dotson is an American man who was the first person to be exonerated of a criminal conviction by DNA evidence. In May 1979, he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 to 50 years' imprisonment for rape, and another 25 to 50 years for aggravated kidnapping, the terms to be served concurrently. This conviction was upheld by the appellate court in 1981. In 1985, the accusing witness recanted her testimony, which had been the main evidence against Dotson. He was not exonerated or pardoned at that time, but due to popular belief that he was a victim of a false rape accusation, Dotson went through a series of paroles and re-incarcerations until DNA evidence proved his innocence in 1988. Dotson was subsequently cleared of his conviction.


Every victim's voice should be heard. Every accused voice should he heard.

The crime is one thing. The punishment is another. The criminal justice system is NOT a perfect entity but I'd rather a guilty person to go free than an innocent person be punished.

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Every victim's voice should be heard. Every accused voice should he heard.



Heard yes, not automatically believed.

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Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after a white woman said she was offended by him in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement.
Till was born and raised in Chicago and in August 1955, was visiting relatives near Money, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that, in 1955, she had fabricated testimony that Till made verbal or physical advances towards her in the store.

Till's reported behavior, perhaps unwittingly, violated the strictures of conduct for an African-American male interacting with a white woman in the Jim Crow-era South. Several nights after the store incident, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam went armed to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
A disturbing set of historical incidents notwithstanding. The adjudication of relationships both consensual and non-consensual in the court of Public Opinion and in the Civil and Criminal court systems favors those in power and a status quo. Women and minorities have never gotten justice.



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Women and minorities have never gotten justice.


As a 60 year old black man, I know all about injustice.

You can't redress past injustices by committing future injustice.

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You can't redress past injustices by committing future injustice.
Retroactive justice isn't redressing past injustice and there is no such thing as committing future injustice.

Otherwise why would Donald Trump pardon Jack Johnson? A pardon is an admission of guilt and an excuse from punishment.

One can try and change laws to prevent a future injustice but how does one commit an injustice in the future? Now that miscegenation laws, the Mann Act laws have been changed maybe people of color won't be criminalized for dating members of the opposite race? Unless you are Emmet Till, or Driving While Black?

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Black female Oprah is not oppressed by white male hillbilly. What you have done is the classist sleight of hand that has given rise to the issue raised by the OP. You claim the system favors the powerful, but as fast as you say that, you say the system favors whites and males. No. You were right the first time that the system favors the powerful, not whites and males. I think you did that to get people on board with you in order to try and pull a fast one to suit a pet issue of yours, social justice warrior.

I read a post of yours where you defend bank bailouts. There is always an irony in people who say they feel that the system oppresses women and nonwhites in that they want to give to that same system even more power supposedly to stop the oppression it causes.

Check your own privlidge and you will see that the issue here is society is far to trusting of women in that we take them at their word even when there is a clear motive. It makes sense that established power would favor a system where anybody is guilty with the snap of a finger because they are the ones to wield that power against any competition. Anyone can be pulled over on the road for speeding. Anyone can be accused of rape.

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I think that while society is shifting as to what is acceptable not everyone is catching up fast enough. From what I understand with Morgan Freeman, there is no rape, there shouldn't be anything with DNA. This behaviour or culture of harassment was commonplace. I mean watch any movie before 2000 and even then I'm sure you will still see it. I was recently going through my teenage diaries, and there were so many instances that I wrote about with men following me in a mall commenting on my ass or walking by and grabbing it. I don't really understand why men have thought that it is ok to do some of this things. I was working at a gas station and a regular customer, out of the blue one day, told me that judging by the hair on my arms that I probably had a big blond bush. Who says that??? I don't know one woman that doesn't have a story like this.

I think that in cases like this, Mr. Freeman has been able to get away with some inappropriate behaviour because for years and years no one called him on it. So now that there is support behind women, everyone is telling their story. I don't believe that in instances like this the man (or woman's) career should be destroyed, but I do think that they should have to go through a retraining, if you will, first. If it continues, then something more severe. It will take practice. As sad as that sounds, it will take practice to break this cycle, and we all need to be aware and call it out the second it happens. This waiting and then going public...not anymore.

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You can't jail someone for comments you don't like and what if a guy is genuinely paying you a compliment (ex - you're beautiful, you're hot, etc.) and yet you take it as an sexual comment, when it's just a sincere comment?

I'm sorry, I call BS on that argument. Women say far, far, far dirtier things than I've ever heard come out of a guys mouth and by the way, if a woman doesn't want a guy to notice them bodies, how about women stop dressing to get that kind of attention? There's a novel idea!

Seriously, do you really believe what you've stated above?!?

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I don't see where I stated that anyone needed to be jailed. The jist of what I was trying to say is that it will take time and practice for society to change. We need to change the behaviour. I think it's totally inappropriate to touch someone you don't know. I think it's inappropriate to comment on someone's pubic hair if you've never said more than hello. Or comment on breasts or a guys penis. Most women I know have felt harassed at least once in their lives. About 50% of men that I've talked to about it have felt the same

I am saying that society needs time to shift. If someone is acting inappropriate to you, especially at work, say something in the moment, as long as you are physically safe. If you aren't safe, then go make a complaint to the cops. Don't wait anymore. Say it to the person at that moment. Say it in front of others. I don't think that it is helpful to wait and then go public to destroy someone's career. And I think that as long as there wasn't rape, that harassment training is usually a good first step instead of being fired and blacklisted.

So please....I don't know where you got that I was saying to jail someone for their comments. So yes, I do really believe what I've stated above.

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For discrimination I don't think there is any greater disparity than between women and men in the court system and it favors women. They are given more lenient sentences for the same crime. There are many psychiatric studies about this that both men and women automatically view women as more trustworthy, as more vulnerable, as more valuable, and many such qualities that come into play. Even feminists admit this although they say it is a double edged sword that women are viewed as helpless.

Men and women are different and your observations may help illustrate that in that women seem more bothered by comments. It may be the case that they may get too much attention but the opposite side is that men would get too little so it makes sense but women usually only see it one way. The biggest proof would be women complaining about something ficticious like rape culture. The rape culture is in the male prisons where it is a societal source of amusement and humor.

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How can rape culture be fictiicious is one instance but not another? I am also not sure where the courts favour women over men in regards to harassment, assault, and rape. I don't think we see enough cases that make it to court for everyone. The justice system, police included, are usually on the side of the accused, not the victim. That goes for all sexes, but I do agree that this is where support for males is lacking.

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I think, historically, that women, minority's, gays etc...had no voice in the legal system. (in western culture, as injustice still prevails otherwise in the world today)
If they were assaulted, victimized or raped then the victim was put on trial themselves if they even dared to come forward in the first place. Basically they had no voice.
Unfortunately the tide has turned and they seem now to have the only voice. I say unfortunately because jumping to the other extreme is no more the answer then the way things use to be. The true issue has become diluted by the media taking every accusation as complete truth of incriminating behavior... and even allowing that to happen. I get no satisfaction in seeing careers and lives ruined so easily.
And rape culture? What does that even mean? I'm a woman and have experienced every degree of offenses in my life and I have never felt we lived in a "rape culture". Even after having been actually raped..
I do not equate flirting or inappropriate remarks with harassment and assault. There are different degrees of what some women find offensive while others may not. But regardless, they are not even close to the same things. Do we live in a world now where we now feel we are entitled to never be offended?
What about those of us that are offended by that very notion?
I think Harvey Weinstein, and others like him, had the clout and position to probably be guilty of all the unpleasant accusations against them.
But I think it's very disingenuous not to recognize that some other of the rich and famous typically have those groupie elements that initially approach celebrities willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead or have a piece of the pie. To be naive about this is being dishonest.
And then some perhaps like Morgan Freeman just think they are being flirtatious and don't even regard it as positioning themselves over others. Maybe it's inappropriate at times and going too far but I don't think it deserves their ruin.






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I agree with much of what you said, but I do not agree that victims have the only voice. Perhaps in the court of public opinion, which does destroy careers. If victims had the only voice in the court system I wouldn't know the names of Brock Turner or Robin Camp.

I do agree that the public does not give due process and that careers are being destroyed for what appears to be minor things. People's lives have also been destroyed over tweets. I struggle with what is or isn't harassment. When this started I looked at the legal definition and it's pretty broad. I am pretty sure I am guilty of some sort of harassment in my life. I know that a woman made a youtube video awhile ago about all the harassment she received in a day walking in NY? and I didn't think that everything was that bad, but that's me. The key to the legality of it is that it's unwelcome. So what is good fun for one person is harassment for someone else. This is the culture shift that I am referring to. That we need to be aware of what is and isn't welcome. As the person who is receiving the unwanted attention we need to speak up in the moment. As the person who is making the comments we need to stop when someone says no thanks.

These situations where someone like Weinstein has been accused of rape that's different to me than over zealous flirting. At this point I don't know what has been said to Freeman about not continuing with lecherous behaviour. If nothing, then he deserves a pass. If he has ignored complaints, then yeah, maybe a bit of a slap on the wrist. Same with Louis CK. He didn't force anyone to do anything from what I know.

I only mentioned rape culture because of

The biggest proof would be women complaining about something ficticious like rape culture. The rape culture is in the male prisons where it is a societal source of amusement and humor.

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[deleted]

“Where do I go to get my good name back?” After a sensational story makes the headlines, even if the person is found innocent, their name is tarnished forever.
One need go nowhere to regain One's good name. Doesn't Good Name also equal Reputation?

No one's name or reputation is tarnished by an accusation that is proven false, untrue or is recanted. If your Good Name or Reputation is based solely on a manufactured perception or image creation and not real works, ideas or results then your Good Name is just an opinion held by others.

I THINK so and so is a Good Guy. Why would what someone THINKS about you change who you really are?

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[deleted]

I agree America is on a path to destruction thanks to identity politics, but if you are outed as a creep why should you keep working on the spotlight?

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