National Action Network president and MSNBC host Al Sharpton denounced a series of emails between Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin as “offensive, insulting” and revealing of casual racism in Hollywood.
“What is most troubling about these statements is that they reflect a continued lack of diversity in positions of power in major Hollywood studios. The statements clearly show how comfortable major studio powers are with racial language and marginalization,” said Sharpton in a statement.
Pascal has apologized for the emails, first reported by BuzzFeed, that include racially-themed banter about President Obama.
“These emails nominate Amy Pascal to be considered by some of us in the same light that we concluded and moved on the ownership of Donald Sterling of the L.A. Clippers,” Sharpton writes.