Adele Now Accused Of Promoting Sexual Harassment After ‘White Privilege’ Petition
Adele is currently the biggest pop star of the past 20 years or so. However, that hasn’t stopped people from trying to trash her success. In December, there was a petition at Change.org, which pictured Adele in front of a Confederate flag, claiming she needed to publicly recognize her “white privilege.”
“Adele sold over 3.38 million copies of her album ’25’ and the media is praising her as if Adele’s success has everything to do with talent. Rather, it’s her white privilege that has put her on top,” the petition claimed.
The petition went on to note that Adele has sold more than recent albums by Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Janet Jackson, while also stating the albums by the aforementioned artists were supposedly better. The mission statement of the petition says that the fawning over Adele by fans and the press continues to show how minorities are repressed in the music business.
Even though the petition has so-far earned more than 200 signatures and has been featured on many news sites, Snopes believes it could just be a job of one creative troll or just an angry Rihanna fan.
“What was true was that a petition titled ‘Adele Needs To Publicly Recognize Her White Privilege’ was published to Change.org on 30 November 2015. The petition was credited to an individual named ‘Rihanna Jones,’ who didn’t return any hits in a Google search restricted to before 30 November 2015.”
Perhaps, the person disguised their real name since they didn’t want anonymous threats from real internet trolls. In any case, the anger of the people who signed the petition is definitely real.
Now, two months later, Adele’s “Hello,” which most people consider beautiful and harmless, has been accused of promoting sexual harassment on college campuses. Fox411 has the news.
“The University of Oklahoma’s Gender + Equality Center says Adele’s song ‘Hello’ helps ‘normalize sexual harassment.’ In a series of posters distributed on the university’s campus, the group cites the hit single’s verse: ‘I must have called a thousand times.'”
“Taken literally, I think the subject in her song is safe since they are separated by a million miles,” writes commenter AuntiDiDi.
“Welcome to the world that PC brought us… pull a line out of a song and use it out of context to justify calling the song offensive. I doubt anyone who has complained about this issue has listened to the entire song and thought about what the message of the song is,” says DantesPop.
Twitter seems to think the charges against Adele’s “Hello” are unwarranted as well.
So far, Adele hasn’t commented on the sexual harassment charges. She just announced that her new single is going to be called “When We Were Young,” which is one of her fan’s favorites from her album 25. What do you think of the sexual harassment claims against Adele’s song? Let us know in the comments section.
[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]
