The Guardian

Is Lena Dunham's ‘hipster racism’ just old-fashioned prejudice?

Last week, the Girls co-creator was accused by a former colleague of ‘hipster racism’. Arwa Mahdawi reports on an unwitting racism deeply embedded in popular culture
Dunham’s defence of Miller – for which she has now apologised – caused an immediate backlash and sparked calls for women of colour to ‘divest’ from Dunham. Photograph: Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images

It is, by now, a familiar cycle. First Lena Dunham, the writer-actor-director best known for creating and starring in HBO’s Girls, does or says something incredibly tone-deaf and offensive. Outrage ensues and people explain to Dunham why her actions were offensive. She apologizes.

But she doesn’t seem to listen, because a few months pass and Dunham does something else offensive. And then the cycle repeats itself.

The latest Dunham drama began last week when the actor Aurora Perrineau accused Murray Miller, a writer on Girlsof raping her when she was 17. Dunham has built her brand on being an outspoken feminist, and has publicly said you should always believe women; that women don’t lie about rape. But to some, it seems what she meant was that women don’t lie about rape.

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