WAIT, WHAT? STACEY DASH “APPALLED” BY PATRICIA ARQUETTE’S OSCARS SPEECH

There’s no doubt that the 2015 Oscars were filled with deep messages on race, wages and immigration, but it was actress Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech that hit a nerve with Stacey Dash.

“I was appalled. I could not believe it,” said the former actress on Fox and Friends on Monday morning about Arquette’s take on equal pay for women. “First of all, Patricia Arquette needs to do her history. In 1963, [President] Kennedy passed an equal pay wall. It’s still in effect. I didn’t get the memo that I didn’t have any rights.”

Now, Arquette didn’t quite say all that, but if you read on you will see how Dash might have come to that conclusion.

As Arquette took the stage for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Boyhood, she said: “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” she said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Clearly, Dash was not as pumped as Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez who cheered and clapped at Arquette’s speech.

Arquette continued the pay equity conversation backstage on the subject, stating: “The truth is, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are at play that do affect women, and it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we all fought for to fight for us now.”

To Dash’s credit, Arquette’s powerful speech did make it sound as if the fight for equality for the LGBT and people of color is over with which is, of course, not the case at all. To add to controversy, Dash took to Twitter, which may have been a bit over the top.

“Hey @PattyArquette, KENNEDY signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963!” Dash tweeted. “Why doesn’t Obama/Holder simply enforce?”

Um, while John F. Kennedy signing the Equal Pay Act into law was groundbreaking stuff for women back in the day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the problem has been solved. If enforcement is the issue then Dash is clearly tweeting at the wrong person.

Kennedy even said it himself after signing, as E! News pointed out, “Much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity…Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.” His statement is as true then as it is now because there’s definitely still a wage gap for women compared to white men but the situation is even worse for women of color.

Latinas make 53 cents for every dollar a white man makes, according to data from the American Association of University Women. Native American women make 60 cents, black women 64. White and Asian women face the narrowest wage gap, making 78 cents and 87 cents.

If only Dash had thought twice before tweeting, right?

Perhaps it was because Arquette was reading from a prepared speech and her emotions possibly got the best of her but whatever the case, she took to Twitter to further clarify her statement. “Wage equality will help ALL women of all races in America,” she tweeted.

She continued tweeting and said: “It will also help their children and society. Women have been basically paying a gender tax for generations. I have long been an advocate for the rights of the #LBGT community. The question is why aren’t you an advocate for equality for ALL women?”

“If you are fighting against #Equalpay you are fighting for ALL women and especially women of color to make less money than men,” she continued.

So whatever the case it’s clear that Stacey Dash and Patricia Arquette were both within their own right to express their opinions and even right and wrong, depending on who was doing the listening.

-Via Latina
Image: Getty