Leslie Jones may be one of the stars of the 2016 Ghostbusters movie that was successful enough to probably get a sequel, but that appears to have also made her a bigger target for nasty racist harrassment. Jones originally tried to respond to the racist tweets directed at her by blocking, reporting and ignoring them, but as Twitter did nothing, she eventually had enough. "I'm gonna stop blocking so y'all can go through my feed and see the bs," she said.
She showed everyone the sheer amount of racist hatred being directed at her. The tweets ranged from folks accusing her of being the "source of AIDS" to several that compared her to an ape. Many even mocked her over her dead brother. Her plea was for people to help her report these people to Twitter and get something done about it. She pointed out that while celebrities like her want to bond and communicate with fans online, this sort of behavior makes it impossible.
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Several celebrities came out in support of Jones, including John Boyega, Brie Larson, Judd Apatow, Josh Gad, Damon Wayans, Jr., Anna Kendrick, Margaret Cho, Olivia Munn, Jada Pinkett Smith and Kristin Davis. Ghostbusters director Paul Feig also supported her and he and Sony worked to get a few of the twitter accounts involved suspended. A hashtag #LoveforLeslieJ was launched to support her as well.
Unfortunately, as support escalated, so did the harrassment. Twitter users took to impersonating her online and posting homophobic and anti-semitic tweets in her name, which greatly upset her.
Jones appears to have finally had enough, as the latest tweet in her account is this one:
I'm honestly greatly saddened by what Jones has had to deal with. There's no excuse for this kind of behavior. Many have told Jones she should "ignore it" but not only has that clearly not worked for her, I think she's right in pointing out we need to condemn and expose these people rather than letting them do what they want. Jones still has to see this, she is still hurt by it and she has a right to react to it. A lot of fans in her retweets have also responded by getting in debates about the Ghostbusters movie, but that is so besides the point its ridiculous, as Jones points out in her final tweet.
Leslie Jones always struck me as a kind, warm person in her interviews, who wanted to use her role in Ghostbusters to uplift black women. Her performance in the Ghostbusters movie was great (you can read my review of it for Epicstream here) and it's so sad that this happened to her. The #LoveforLeslieJ hashtag is still out there, so if you want to tweet some love to drown out the hate, please consider doing so.
Read: New Ghostbusters Film Will Get an Extended Blu-ray Cut
Read: Original Ghostbusters Director Ivan Reitman Defends Reboot and Discusses Backlash
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