Marcy Chin Compares Comedian Mo’Nique To National Hero Marcus Garvey
Downsound Records signee Marcy Chin is likening American comedian Mo’Nique to Jamaica’s first national hero Marcus Garvey.
The Parkers star aired out her grievances with peers including Tyler Perry, Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish during a three-hour sitdown on the Club Shay Shay podcast on Wednesday.
Of prominence was her side of her fallout with media mogul Oprah Winfrey, which started over disputes about her obligations to the movie Precious, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2010.
Mo’Nique claimed that Oprah, a producer on the film alongside Perry and director Lee Daniels, wanted her to promote the film internationally, though she had fulfilled the terms of her contract. She claimed there was no financial incentive for the added work, so she declined it and opted to spend time with her family. It’s a decision she alleges led to her being labelled “difficult to work with”.
Their relationship worsened when the talk show host welcomed Mo’Nique’s estranged family on her now-defunct eponymous show. Mo’Nique claimed Oprah only gave her a heads-up about interviewing her brother, who admitted to molesting her, and felt betrayed that the media magnet didn’t inform her that other family members would be included.
Mo’Nique’s candidness and yearslong advocacy for truth and gender equality are being celebrated by the ‘Chin City’ president.
“Monique really seems to care about our community, more than we realize, in the way a Marcus Garvey or a Malcolm X did,” Marcy Chin wrote under a blogpost. “She stands on truth and is always referring to how their actions impress upon our community. What a hard fight. Much love, strength and support to her.”
Her sentiment was echoed by and even expanded on in a few comments.
“@marcychinofficial and she can name the names of the ones who ran so our generation could walk!!!!” one response read. “Most of the folk that she mentions, who paved the way , I’ve never heard of. We need more like Mo’.”
Other netizens disagreed.
“@marcychinofficial tell me a time (she) stood up for anyone in our community if it didn’t serve her?” one user challenged. “Tell me a time she spoke out about an injustice on her platform?”
Pan-Africanist Garvey devoted the bulk of his life to protesting against racial discrimination and inequality through the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), his global movement that started in 1914.
Garvey’s legacy is also entrenched in promoting black pride, African unity and self-reliance, which sometimes got him in trouble with the law, as documented with his arrest and deportation from the United States in 1927.
His passion for change spawned his People’s Political Party, though he never went on to win in national elections. Garvey took his advocacy to England, where he died in 1940.
He was conferred with the Order of the National Hero in 1969, five years after his re-interment at Kingston’s National Heroes Park.