Michael Ian BlackVerified account

@michaelianblack Myself and so many of your female fans feel so confused and hurt knowing that this is your true opinion

Hi Phoebe. I hope I addressed this last night, but I will clarify. My intention was never to place the needs of the abuser over the victims, but rather to begin asking a question: is there a way to bring people back? I asked the question in good-faith, but perhaps naively...

I didn't recognize the pain asking the question would cause, didn't realize the fragility of the MeToo Movement, and didn't recognize that it would appear as one privileged white dude sticking up for another. My interest isn't with Louis. It's with, first and foremost, survivors.

I incorrectly assumed that people would understand I was not trying to relegate their suffering to some other, less important space, but trying to extricate them from this part of the conversation because their lives are already so burdened with this, I felt separation necessary.

Then, I wanted to begin asking how we bring people out of the cold. I thought about the Scarlet Letter, a letter that affects people for life. Yet they still return, somehow, to work amongst their town. Can we have make space for some of our people who bear that shame?

To me, those impulses were born out of empathy and mercy. I understand they were received as cluelessness, tone-deafness, and privilege. I hear that. I listened to what people had to say and apologized because I felt like I wasn't the person to ask these questions...

And it felt presumptuous of me to try. Thanks.

this is a SHOCKINGLY bad response to a fan voicing concern and i'm sad for all the people who hoped you would give them something encouraging or strengthening. really amazing. it WAS presumptuous of you to try any of this.

Wow you’re so brave to be willing to take the heat! Here’s some: literally no one was waiting for you to weigh in on this, homes. Stop being a messy bitch and get your life together.

Alice, you're certainly right that I'm a messy bitch. Have always been one and will almost certainly always be one. I suspect we're all messy in our way. I didn't think anybody was asking me to weigh in any more than anybody was asking you to weigh in on me...

That's the pleasure of pain of this site - we use it to communicate. I made a mistake the other day in trying to defend a position that was, as I said in a previous tweet, ultimately indefensible. I was wrong and apologized. But I don't apologize for using my voice on here...

That's why we have these tools - to engage, debate, learn. I was wrong. Guess what? This messy bitch is often wrong. I'm sure I'll be wrong in the future and when I am, I'll cop to it. Good luck with your special.

You're not wrong, you're just on twitter. Hate flows like wine on twitter.

What I wish he'd done is talk about what he claimed he was going to listen about less than a year ago. And we didn't have enough space as a culture for women to try to get people to listen about mythologizing men - instead we had Chappelle call women "weak" on a Netflix special.

I feel this is a whole other topic that isn't about redemption but a topic I tried to bring up when he went away which is - women were chastised for calling him out and for hiding it. (I did both) Has culture spent enough time thinking about how women are still on clean up duty?

I'm not asking YOU these questions but wanted to weigh in - these are the questions that come up for me because I think "deserves redemption vs doesn't" isn't what the most important conversation is around this because it still excludes women and what we want out of it.

And I'm not saying that I speak for all women or that women don't think he can or should be redeemed, I just think this is a hugely nuanced conversation that oddly mostly isn't about LCK himself. Anyway, glad you're my friend. Glad you'll listen.

Sometimes you don't get redemption. Sometimes you're damned. Like all the women who left comedy b/c abuse was/is the norm. I'm not saying I would have made it when I tried comedy, but holding the bathroom door closed with my feet while I peed to keep guy comics out did me in.