A Change.org petition calling for “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Jesse Williams‘ job has been getting a lot of media attention, including here on TheWrap. A deeper dive into the activist platform shows there are actually 78 pro-Williams petitions, however.
One, titled “Don’t let the racists win! ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ don’t fire Jesse Williams” addressed to show creator Shonda Rhimes has more than 26,000 supporters alone — about 5,000 more than the buzzier negative one demanding ABC can the man behind Dr. Jackson Avery.
Additional petitions in support of the 34-year-old activist boast a few thousand signatories, some have a few hundred, while others just a handful. But it’s clearly quite one-sided on the website.
A search of Change.org for “Jesse Williams” in quotations marks yields 81 petitions. Without the quotation marks, you get 1,117 results.
One of the unrelated petitions that pops up per the more-targeted search was written by someone (else, presumably) named
The other straggler — No. 81 — is a bizarre call for furniture maker Ikea to provide more seats to … someone.
Last week Williams delivered an impassioned speech at the BET Awards that went viral, prompting the aforementioned Change.org petition seeking his dismissal from the show. During the address, he touched on themes of cultural appropriation, police brutality, consumerism and general exploitation involving the black community.
Earlier today, the actor ripped TheWrap on Twitter for what he called “incessantly promoting” the “cowardly intolerance” of the lone boycott.
Because you keep incessantly promoting their cowardly intolerance! Not a single sane sentence in their claim. NotOne https://t.co/18ZgrbfLnL
— jesse Williams. (@iJesseWilliams) July 6, 2016
In the interest of fairness, we believe it is time for us to take an editorial stance. As such, Jesse Williams, consider TheWrap officially on the record in support of bringing back the Dodge Caravan.