I’m trying to absorb a lot of information. I watched The Hunting Ground. I read Roxane Gay’s open letter, I read Maiysha Kai’s open letter, I read Demetria D’Oyley. Just to really…what do I need to learn about the situation? If I’m really down…if I’m really serious about changing my attitude, if I’m really serious that those comments are wrong, then what do I need to be feeling? And how do I get to that place that there’s an assault against women?
So I sat my daughter down and I talked about this specific situation, it wasn’t the first time because when she became a certain age I talked about it to her anyway. But I said you know, I gotta look at the situation as an opportunity to grow and become more empathetic and more sensitive to issues to that are outside of my everyday, and I don’t want to send you to college and say, “Be careful and watch out.” I said that, for one, when you’re in a relationship with someone you have to be in control of that relationship and you have to be as open as you can about everything, straight up, out the gate. We have a very unique relationship because I don’t ever want her to feel like she can’t come to me, so I allow her to talk to me about everything, which is hard. Being a woman in 2016 if very different, imagine being a woman 20 years ago, and when we talk about consent, maybe 20 years from now we’ll know things about consent and examine it from a different perspective than we are now.
I’ll say this, this whole situation I’m approaching from a standpoint of humility. I’m sorry for all the women who are survivors who felt hurt by my words because they were insensitive and they were nonchalant.
EBONY.com: I think the thing that could have perhaps handled this differently is if you came off more contrite from the jump. Like you said, if you had more empathy from the beginning, or if it wasn’t as self-focused…
Nate Parker: But you know what, I was…
EBONY.com: So why did you give those two interviews first? Because I feel like I had read some articles [about the rape case], but it wasn’t like this thing, until…
Nate Parker: This is hard; I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this. Not everyone has the best intentions. I thought I was giving the interview, at the time of those two interviews–and one really just bit off the other–I didn’t know the status of the women. I didn’t know. I was acting as if I was the victim, and that’s wrong. I was acting as if I was the victim because I felt like, my only thought was I’m innocent and everyone needs to know. I didn’t even think for a second about her, not even for a second.
You asked me why I wasn’t empathetic? Why didn’t it come off more empathetic? Because I wasn’t being empathetic. Why didn’t it come off more contrite? Because I wasn’t being contrite. Maybe I was being even arrogant. And learning about her passing shook me, it really did. It really shook me.
