While you were sleeping, here’s what you missed: Russell Simmons‘ YouTube channel, Def Digital, posted a Harriet Tubman sex tape video, Russell tweeted that it was hilarious, people protested (including the NAACP) and he took it down.
And then, in the wee-hours of this morning, he wrote an apology on his GlobalGrind site.
“In the whole history of Def Comedy Jam, I’ve never taken down a controversial comedian,” he wrote. “When my buddies from the NAACP called and asked me to take down the Harriet Tubman video from the All Def Digital YouTube channel and apologize, I agreed. I’m a very liberal person with thick skin and it’s hard to offend me. 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 Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master, I thought it was politically correct. Silly me.”
The “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape” was the first in a series of history-themed comedy sketches planned on the channel; others include “Blackie Sack,” a parody about the first African-American hacky sack player. Coming later this week is “B-Rock,” an animated series spoofing the “behind-the-scenes shenanigans” of President Obama as he and his “Commando in Chief alter ego, B-Rock, encounter an endless array of familiar characters.”
In the video, “Harriet Tubman” has over-the-top, aggressive sex with her slave owner (she calls him “massah”) while another slave records the tryst from the closet.
“Harriet Tubman” explains that she will use the sex tape as blackmail so that she can run the Underground Railroad.
“Are you sure this gon’ work, Ms. Harriet?,” the slave asks the famed abolitionist.
“This our only chance to getting freedoms,” she replies.
Though taken down from the site, the video is still available on YouTube.