dailydot:

The abuse Leslie Jones endured on Twitter is nothing new for black women

The abuse against Jones is, unfortunately, not shocking. Many black women say that what Jones experienced is commonplace on Twitter, and that Twitter is especially slow to respond to racist abuse.

When she saw the abuse Jones was receiving, comedian and YouTuber Akilah Hughes told the Daily Dot, “It felt like I was reading my own mentions on nights when I decide to take a stance or use a trending hashtag. When you’re black, it’s totally common to be called a slur after just existing on this site and using it like everyone does.”

The response was similar for Shireen Mitchell, founder of Digital Sistas and Stop Online Violence Against Women. “My first thought was I’m not surprised. This is very typical,” she said. “And my second thought was if Twitter doesn’t do anything for a celebrity, this is a level of bias we can’t dig into.” Writer Morgan Jerkins also agrees. “I was definitely desensitized to it. Nothing surprised me whatsoever about the backlash that she received.”

Hughes said every time she gets abused it takes a lot of work on her end to report it, and so far, it’s rarely successful. There was only “one time ever they actually deactivated a racist account that was harassing me,“ she says, “but only because the account had less than 20 tweets and they were all directed at me,” she said.

[READ MORE]