Black actresses ask the world to stand by them during the #MeToo moment

"We are America's black women," Kerry Washington began. "Forces of nature," added Tracee Ellis Ross. "We have always been at the frontlines of change," continued Washington. "We show up," said Ellis Ross. "Everyone knows when we show up, we make a change," Jurnee Smollett-Bell said.

"But we can't do it alone,"Angela Robinson cautioned. "Stand by us, stand for us, stand with us," Laverne Cox urged.

Washington, Ellis Ross, Smollett-Bell, Cox, and Robinson, along with Lena Waithe, were all speaking on Monday at The NAACP Image Awards, an award show that honors the greatest achievements from people of color in entertainment from the past year. An acknowledgement of the importance of strong media representation, the Image Awards honors those fighting to end race discrimination in the industry, and these celebrated actresses and female creators used the platform to deliver a powerful message on the need for intersectional solidarity in the #MeToo movement.

While never explicit, their message questioned aspects of the movement that still struggle to recognize black women's voices, contributions, and experiences.

The speech was a call-to-action to a number of people, from the straight white women who do not extend solidarity to women of color, queer women, trans women, and low-income women, to the the men who speak volumes with their silence during this cultural moment: the time for privileged apathy is up.

Urging everyone to put their money where their Time's Up pin is, the actresses emphasized the importance of effecting change through the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

"If we can take back a Senate seat in Alabama, then we have the ability to shift the balance of power," said Smollett-Bell, referencing how black female voters saved the state from electing an accused child molester to the Senate.

The actresses' speech raises an important issue that the movement still shrinks from confronting: How black women's experiences of sexual assault, and their work to end it, are too often the first accounts to be doubted, ignored, and excluded from the mainstream conversation.

For example, the #MeToo movement was started by black female activist Tarana Burke, who coined the phrase all the way back in 2006 for her organization against sexual assault. The predominantly white actresses who then spurred #MeToo's virality in 2017 failed to recognize how women of color had already begun this conversation long before they arrived on the scene.

Back then (and now), the world failed to listen when black women warned about powerful predators in entertainment, most likely because their victims were predominantly black women and girls. In its most recent forms, this willful blindness was seen in Lena Dunham condemning the woman of color who accused a male Girls writer of rape.

As these actresses' NAACP Image Award speech highlights, the fight to achieve Time's Up vision is inextricably linked to this country's issues with race, class, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We cannot expect black women to continue standing up for women's issues, when those same white women fail to stand up against the human rights violations that question their privilege.

"Take care of each other, and listen to one another," Ellis Ross concluded.

And, for all our sakes, we hope everyone listens.