Sleeping Giants Apologizes After Woman of Color Co-Founder Accuses Head of Gaslighting Her Out

Charlie NashJul 10th, 2020, 1:00 pm
 

Sleeping Giants/Facebook

Liberal activist group Sleeping Giants apologized on Friday after Nandini Jammi accused fellow co-founder Matt Rivitz of gaslighting her out of the organization and minimizing her role.

In a Medium post on Thursday, subtitled “How my white male co-founder gaslighted me out of the movement we built together,” Jammi accused Rivitz of minimizing her involvement to the public and during interviews with the media.

“Without my knowledge, my story was being defined by someone else — a white man who could use his platform to exclude me, diminish me, or disappear me entirely. He never once invited me to join him,” she wrote. “I never had any idea he was doing any of these interviews until it was too late.”

After Rivitz allegedly accepted an award for Sleeping Giants at Cannes on his own without even telling Jammi that they were nominated, Jammi claimed, “I felt humiliated. I spent the week unable to eat, sleep, or function.”

“I’m sorry I have to leave Sleeping Giants. There was always space for both of us, just not on this campaign,” she concluded.

The article was posted by Jammi on the Sleeping Giants Facebook page.

Rivitz apologized through the official Sleeping Giants Twitter account on Friday, declaring, “Women, particularly Women of Color, often are not heard in our society and she deserves to be listened to. And yes, she is right. She is a Co-Founder.”

“Nandini clearly deserves a lot more credit than she has gotten for her groundbreaking work with Sleeping Giants and I’d like to apologize to her and to anyone who may have felt this way during the course of this campaign as volunteers or as followers,” he continued, adding, “I don’t know where Sleeping Giants goes from here, but I hope the mission can continue and get stronger from this. I sincerely hope I can, too.”

Since its creation in November 2016, Sleeping Giants has risen to prominence and over 300,000 Twitter followers for its campaigns to stop companies from advertising on conservative shows and websites.

Targets have included Breitbart News, Rebel Media, and Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor, which was cancelled on Fox News following a mass exodus of advertisers.

Tags: