The Talk’s Sheryl Underwood, a rape survivor, is defending Nate Parker. Underwood is by no means excusing the 17 year-old rape accusations against Parker, but instead, she is questioning why he is being subjected to so much scrutiny when other actors and people in the film industry have been confronted with similar charges and accusations and no one’s batted an eye.

Forgiveness isn’t reserved for certain people. There’s a long list of white men who have violated the law whether its rape (Tommy Lee), domestic abuse (Bill O’Reilly), tax evasion (Nicholas Cage), or any other crime you can think of but when the criminal is black our views and option of the crime become more harass.

“I think this is an odd time for this to be the time that they judge this man on this…Now it’s being brought up when he makes the most iconic film, the most thought-provoking film for some of us who believe Nat Turner was a revolutionary.”

She then continued, “Why is it that Roman Polanski can do whatever he wants, Woody Allen — I guess my feeling about this, from a person who has been raped, one thing we need to understand is the long-lasting, devastating effect of rape to everyone involved. The young lady who could not move forward in her life, that she felt the only way to end that pain was to take her life. So when you’re talking about a movie that seems to artistically portray the violation of a people who were considered property, then you’re talking about a political devastation, not just a sexual devastation that was supposed to motivate Nat Turner to doing what he did.”

As she stated, lets hold everyone to the same standard. You must ask yourself, why now?