Link Ch. 9 – NY Times Draws Controversy Calling Shonda Rhimes an “Angry Black Woman”

The story in the New York Times started out provocatively:

When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called “How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.”

That opening line, and a story that went on to note that actress Viola Davis, who stars in Rhimes’ TV series “How To Get Away With Murder,” is “older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful” than Olivia Washington, who stars in another Rhimes show, “Scandal.”

A pair of lengthy articles from NY Times public editor Margaret Sullivan quotes extensively from reader criticism of the article, that she says is righty deserved.

Read the article and the two responses from the public editor so you can form your own opinion.  Does the writer, a white male, treat Rhimes the same way he would have treated a white male?  What things are the critics sensitive about?  How do you feel about how the author defends himself?

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