*Hundreds of trolls attacked comedian Leslie Jones on Twitter last night with a slew of racist and misogynistic tweets, which became so overwhelming for the “Ghostbusters” star that she began sharing the messages to “expose” the authors and called on Twitter to enact stronger guidelines on hate speech.
“You know I’m gonna stop blocking (people) so y’all can go through my feed yourself and see (this). You won’t believe the evil,” she wrote in the midst of the barrage. “It’s f***ing scary.”
“I just don’t understand,” she wrote after a tweet compared her to an ape.
I just don’t understand pic.twitter.com/N9xWoXPttu
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
Trolls also used existing memes to disparage Jones and compared her to slain gorilla Harambe.
Exposing I hope y’all go after them like they going after me pic.twitter.com/ojK5FdIA0H
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
Exposing pic.twitter.com/jfSbGj3yCP
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 18, 2016
“It’s like when you think “ok I’ve proven I’m worthy” then you get hit with a shovel of (hatred),” Jones tweeted in response to the vitriol. “I’m numb…I’m not stupid to not know racism exists. And I know it will probably live on way after me. But we have to make people take responsibility…for the hate they (spew). We have to stand up to it.”
“Ghostbusters” director Paul Feig jumped to stand up for the actress. “Leslie Jones is one of the greatest people I know. Any personal attacks against her are attacks against us all,” he wrote, with the hashtag #LoveForLeslieJ – which began trending on Twitter Monday night.
After a day of fighting back, Jones seemed defeated by Monday night. “I mean on my worst day I can’t think of this type of hate to put out,” she wrote.
I feel like I’m in a personal hell. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. It’s just too much. It shouldn’t be like this. So hurt right now.
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart.All this cause I did a movie.You can hate the movie but the shit I got today…wrong
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
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