For low-income shoppers, the holiday season can be particularly precarious.
By Aaron Ross Coleman is a NY Times writer who covers race and economics.
I am not done with my Christmas shopping. I realize this is not great. Partly, I blame procrastination. I also don’t like crowds.
But I also hate the way searching for the perfectly priced present reminds me that for many Americans, especially African-American shoppers, prices are never going to be perfect.
In cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, high-quality retailers often avoid majority-black neighborhoods. In segregated cities like Detroit, some residents say that trying to find something as basic as a Gap can feel impossible. Without mainstream stores, many customers in urban black neighborhoods are left to shop at low-quality and exploitative outlets that fleece their patrons during the holidays.
I saw this for myself when I walked into a holiday sale at Rent-A-Center in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Oversize flat-screen TVs lined the walls and overstuffed couches filled the floors. The large “No Credit Needed” sign on the window made me feel as if I might actually be able to afford something.
While walking me through the season specials, a sales representative pointed out an advertisement selling Beats by Dre headphones for $20 a week. It sounded reasonable enough until I read the fine print that explained after a 61-week payment plan the headphones would cost $1,219.39.
You can buy the headphones outright for $349.95 or less. So that’s not just an exorbitant markup. In some states it could be illegal.
In a current California class-action lawsuit against Rent-A-Center, lawyers argue that the company’s customers, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, are charged prices that violate the state’s rent-to-own pricing laws. The legal documents say that a Rent-A-Center in Northern California ultimately charged, after installments, $1,379.54 for an Xbox that normally retails at $299.99, and $2,834.19 for a television that sells for $717.60.
I have not been tempted to finance an Xbox this way, even though I grew up in black neighborhoods south and east of Atlanta — areas with no shortage of rent-to-own stores. I was lucky, though, to hear this simple advice from my dad from an early age: Spend cash, not credit.
This is what he taught on our Saturday-morning shopping trips. Whether we were on the way to buy a new refrigerator or look at a used car, the lesson was the same: “If you don’t have enough to buy it cash, don’t buy it,” he’d tell us.
Mom’s lessons were equally sober. She had a few credit cards but hated them all. Whenever she finally paid one off, she’d call us into her room. There, she asked us to help her demolish the card. We twisted it. We bent it. We folded it until the blue and red plastic turned white along the creases. Then, finally, we’d snip it to pieces. It was a ceremony of sorts. The itinerary concluded in a lecture about the evils of interest and how we were now free from the shackles of another company. By the time I reached the age of 18, my approach to finance was “Just say no.”
“No, I do not want to sign up for a store credit card.”
“No, I do not want to finance a computer over several payments.”
No. No. No.
I had internalized the distrust my parents taught me, but it wasn’t until I went to college that I began to better understand where they were coming from.
My junior year, I read Manning Marable’s “How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America.” In it, the author outlined the various debt schemes retailers use to target black neighborhoods. “White businessmen now recognize that the urban poor and lower-income consumers can be made to pay much higher prices than affluent white suburbanites for commodities, so long as adequate lines of credit are made available to them.”
Although he wrote the book in 1983, it explained the ideology of the predatory world that surrounded me more than 30 years later. This was the used-car dealer who tried to get me to finance a 10-year-old Honda Civic for $18,000. This was the subprime lending that wiped out half of black Americans’ wealth in the Great Recession. These were the majority-black neighborhoods full of Rent-A-Centers and payday lenders.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Black neighborhoods can support legitimate stores.
During the mid-2000s, economists calculated a $42 billion retail supply gap in urban neighborhoods where many African-Americans reside. Today, retail-redlining studies of areas like Harlem and Chicago’s West Side reveal that high-quality bookstores, pharmacies, restaurants and other businesses still often steer clear of minority communities despite strong consumer demand.
In the void, many urban black neighborhoods are left with few alternatives. Online shopping is a good option for some people. But a lack of reliable internet access and the necessity of having a credit or debit card prevent many low-income people from participating in this digital economy. Not everyone lives in a neighborhood where packages and presents can sit safely on a stoop while they are at work.
In fact, in recent years businesses that clearly seem predatory and low-quality have expanded in many black neighborhoods.
My dad’s advice was simple — spend cash, not credit. But that advice is not easy to follow when the gift-giving season is here and every store in your neighborhood is promising a way to be Santa for just $20 a week.
No, it will not be easy. Yes, it will be rewarding. (Eventually.)
Kristin Wong NY TIMES
“I’d like to write a book someday.”
Like many writers, I said this for years before finally deciding to commit to the long and grueling process of publishing my first book, which is about personal finance.
Most authors would probably agree that writing a book is one of the most difficult challenges of their careers. You spend your summer inside writing while your friends post photos of their beach vacations on Instagram. Once your book is published, the work is far from over: You must now sell it like your career depends on it, because it kind of does. Failure is a constant fear, and impostor syndrome can feel overwhelming. But more often than not, it’s also completely worth it.
Consider your ‘platform’
Before you write your first word, ask yourself: Do I have an audience? And, most important: Does my idea actually appeal to readers?
“My most common recommendation for people who want to write a book is, ‘Don’t — not yet,’” said Ramit Sethi, the author of “I Will Teach You to Be Rich.” “Build a large audience first.” Mr. Sethi, whose nonfiction personal finance book started as a blog with the same title, was able to amass hundreds of thousands of readers before he landed a book deal.
Building an audience isn’t a prerequisite, of course, and it’s certainly not easy, but publishers like authors who come with a built-in market.
Don’t write your book — yet
Many aspiring authors assume that getting started means cranking out tens of thousands of words before you approach an agent or publisher, but it might depend on the book. If you have an idea for a nonfiction book, it’s better to write a couple of chapters and then pitch a book proposal. That way, you can see if there’s any interest before you churn out 80,000 words on a given topic.
Even though you might not need to write the entire book before pitching it, it’s likely that if an agent or potential publisher likes the idea, they’ll still want to see at least two sample chapters. In any case, you’re going to want to fully flesh out your idea and write up those sample chapters before reaching out to agents, or, if you’re still building an audience, a few blog posts on your topic. Doing so will give you a deeper sense of what your book is about and what the rest of the writing process will be like — and this will also help you firm up your ideas of what the rest of the book will be like.
Decide how to publish
With traditional publishing, you’ll put together a book proposal, find an agent and then your agent will send your proposal to publishers. If those publishers like your idea, they could make you an offer. If multiple publishers like your idea your book might even go to auction, which could help you secure a more lucrative deal.
If a publisher buys your book, your advance from the publisher will likely be paid out in installments (typically two or three). How those payments are broken up varies widely, but one possible combination is a third paid on contract signing, another third on manuscript delivery, and the final third upon publication. (Though sometimes the advance is paid out in two sums, and, in some instances, four or more.) You won’t earn royalties from your book until you sell enough copies to outearn your advance.
“As a self-published author, you have more control of your work because you have more control of your deadlines and budget,” said Nailah Harvey, author of “Look Better in Writing.” “Some people do not work well with the pressure of third-party deadlines, so self-publishing may be a better fit for their personality.” You also have full creative control over your work, Ms. Harvey said, whereas with a publisher, you may have to bend to their ideas for your book title, cover and content.
Mr. Sethi, both a traditionally published and self-published author, said your choice will partly depend on what’s more important to you: profit or credibility. Traditional publishing lends you the latter, while self-publishing can be more profitable because you won’t have to give a percentage of sales to an agent and publisher. On the other hand, an agent and publisher might be able to help increase your reach to make those sales.
Self-publishing also means your book will be available on only the platform you publish with, and it likely will never get on shelves in physical bookstores or libraries.
If you opt to self-publish, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, an online publishing platform for digital books and paperbacks, is an ideal place to start. The site includes manuscript templates you can download and follow. You’ll write, edit, proofread and format the book before uploading it for approval.
Self-publishing means you have to do all of the work, like designing a cover and proofreading, yourself (or hire people to help).
Write your book proposal
While an agent will likely want to see the completed manuscript of a novel, a nonfiction book typically requires a proposal, which is a detailed outline of what your book is and why it matters. Rather than thinking of your proposal as an introduction to the book, think of it as a business case for why it’s worth a publisher’s time and investment.
You’ll make the case for your book’s marketability in this proposal, so you’ll want to include sections on your target audience, competitive titles, a table of contents and an outline. You can find downloadable book proposal templates online. For example, the publishing platform Reedsy includes detailed explanations of what’s included in a book proposal on their blog, along with a template you can download. The literary agent Ted Weinstein shares a simple nonfiction template on his website. And Jane Friedman, a Publisher’s Weekly columnist, includes a brief outline and introduction to writing a book proposal on her website.
“If it’s a big New York publishing house, they’re probably looking for an idea with relevancy or currency in the market, combined with an author who has a platform — visibility to the intended readership,” Ms. Friedman said.
Publishers also like to see numbers. Try to quantify your platform using metrics like your combined social media followers, newsletter subscribers or monthly page views on your blog.
Find an agent
“An agent is a near-requirement if you want to be published by one of the major New York publishing houses,” Ms. Friedman said. While you can approach smaller publishing houses and university presses directly, you’ll still need someone to look over your contract. If not an agent, you’ll need to hire a literary or intellectual property lawyer once you get to that step, she added.
You may have to query multiple agents about your idea. Ideally, one of them will bite and want to represent you. Then, you’ll have a helping hand through the rest of the process. The agent will pitch your book proposal or manuscript to publishers, which can lead to getting-to-know-you meetings with publishers and editors, or both. If a publisher loves your idea, your agent will then negotiate the contract and terms with input from you as needed. It sounds simple, but this can take much more time than many writers expect.
Now it’s time to write
Start by establishing your writing habit. Don’t look at your book as a monster, 80,000-word project; view it as a collection of tiny goals and achievements you can knock off one at a time. (One way to structure this type of working: make micro-progress, or the smallest units of progress.)
“Since money can equal time in some ways, I used my steady paycheck to buy myself time to write,” said Paulette Perhach, author of “Welcome to the Writer’s Life.” “For instance, I outsourced the cleaning of my place once a month while I went and wrote for three hours in a coffee shop.”
Ms. Perhach said she gave herself a small goal to write for one hour per day, then shared that goal with loved ones. She also joined writing groups, which can be a helpful step for many writers who may find it hard to turn in work without a real deadline. A 2014 Stanford study found that working on a team makes you feel motivated, even if you’re really working alone. If you have friends who like to write, you could organize a writer accountability group with weekly or monthly deadlines.
There are also existing groups and organizations you can join. In November, NaNoWriMo (which stands for National Novel Writing Month) encourages writers from all over the world to sign up on its website and begin working on a goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. Many libraries and writing centers host regular writing groups as well.
Think about schedules instead of deadlines
You’ll want to organize your writing workflow so you’re encouraged to keep up with the habit every day.
First figure out how much time you have to write each week, then schedule that writing time into your day. Some writers like to get their words out at night, after everyone has gone to bed. Others prefer to write as their first task of the day. Experiment with different times to find what works for you.
Once your writing schedule is in place, you’ll have to decide what you want to write. Books are big — where do you dig in first? In a lecture at Columbia University that was later published in “Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays,” the novelist Zadie Smith said there are “macro planners” and “micro managers.”
“You will recognize a macro planner from his Post-Its, from those Moleskines he insists on buying. A macro planner makes notes, organizes material, configures a plot and creates a structure — all before he writes the title page. This structural security gives him a great deal of freedom of movement,” Ms. Smith said in her lecture. Micro managers, on the other hand, have no master plan for their writing and simply figure out the ending when they get there.
Again, a little trial and error works well. You can try to just start writing your first draft, and if you find yourself stuck, start again with the outline and work from there. Or you might just try to start writing about something that excites you.
If your writing system feels chaotic, there are tools that can help you corral the mess. Scrivener is a popular writing program designed to help authors organize and research their books. When writing my book, I used a simple Excel spreadsheet that included my table of contents, along with the tasks that went with it. Each chapter also had its own separate Excel sheet that included more detail about what I wanted to include in that chapter, like interviews, references and research.
Dig in for the long haul
The most common question aspiring authors asked when I finished my book: How long did it take? It’s hard to quantify how long it took, but writing a book is an exercise in patience.
When I started to get serious about my idea, I bought “How to Write a Book Proposal.” From there, it was two and a half years until I convinced an agent to represent my idea, and another year and a half before my book was on a shelf.
“I think you should plan for at least one year to write the first draft of a book, and a second year to rewrite it,” Ms. Perhach said. Of course, it can take much longer than this, but most writers can expect at least a couple of years to pen a book.
“Writing is like putting together Ikea furniture,” she added. “There’s a right way to do it, but nobody knows what it is.”
One man's irresponsible lust and vanity and the women he seduced!
Woody Allen's Secret Teen Lover Speaks: Sex, Power and a Conflicted Muse Who Inspired 'Manhattan'
In 1976, 16-year-old model Babi Christina Engelhardt embarked on a hidden eight-year affair with the 41–year-old filmmaker that mirrors one of his most famous movies. Now, amid the #MeToo reckoning and Allen’s personal scandals, she looks back with mixed emotions on their relationship and its unequal dynamic.
Sixteen, emerald-eyed, blond, an aspiring model with a confident streak and a painful past: Babi Christina Engelhardt had just caught Woody Allen's gaze at legendary New York City power restaurant Elaine's. It was October 1976, and when Engelhardt returned from the ladies' room, she dropped a note on his table with her phone number. It brazenly read: "Since you've signed enough autographs, here's mine!"
Soon, Allen rang, inviting her to his Fifth Avenue penthouse. The already-famous 41-year-old director, still hot off Sleeper and who'd release Annie Hall the following spring, never asked her age. But she told him she was still in high school, living with her family in rural New Jersey as she pursued her modeling ambitions in Manhattan. Within weeks, they'd become physically intimate at his place. She wouldn't turn 17, legal in New York, until that December.
The pair embarked on, by her account, a clandestine romance of eight years, the claustrophobic, controlling and yet dreamy dimensions of which she's still processing more than four decades later. For her, the recent re-examination of gender power dynamics initiated by the #MeToo movement (and Allen's personal scandals, including a claim of sexual abuse by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow) has turned what had been a melancholic if still sweet memory into something much more uncomfortable. Like others among her generation — she just turned 59 on Dec. 4 — Engelhardt is resistant to attempts to have the life she led then be judged by what she considers today's newly established norms. "It's almost as if I'm now expected to trash him," she says.
Time, though, has transfigured what she's long viewed as a secret, unspoken monument to their then-still-ongoing relationship: 1979's Manhattan, in which 17-year-old Tracy (Oscar-nominated Mariel Hemingway) enthusiastically beds Allen's 42-year-old character Isaac "Ike" Davis. The film has always "reminded me why I thought he was so interesting — his wit is magnetic," Engelhardt says. "It was why I liked him and why I'm still impressed with him as an artist. How he played with characters in his movies, and how he played with me."
Two of Engelhardt's close friends from the period affirm they were aware of Engelhardt's relationship with Allen at the time — one would even drop her off at his penthouse. Photographer Andrew Unangst, who was dining with her at Elaine's the night she made her move on Allen, also says he knew about the long-running tryst she initiated that night. "She was a knockout, and outgoing too," he says of the gambit. Engelhardt's younger brother Mike remembers Allen calling their parents' home: "I'd holler out, 'Babi, it's Woody!' My brain didn't think something romantic; I was 11 or 12 and a huge fan. I mean, Bananas?!"
Engelhardt and her journey, shared here publicly for the first time, are complicated. She's proud of her teenage self as an up-by-her-bootstraps heroine who successfully beguiled a "celebrated genius." Even now, she holds herself largely responsible for remaining in the relationship as long as she did and for the frustration and sorrow that ultimately came with the liaison — one in which, by her description, she never held any agency. (Most experts would contend that such an uneven power dynamic is inherently exploitative.)
Even with hindsight, though, she's unwilling to indict Allen, who declined to comment for this story. "What made me speak is I thought I could provide a perspective," she offers. "I'm not attacking Woody," she says. "This is not 'bring down this man.' I'm talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets.".
Today, Engelhardt (who dropped Babi from her name and goes by Christina), is a divorcee and mother of two college-aged daughters living in a crystal-filled apartment in the flats of Beverly Hills. Since childhood, she says she's been a psychic reader, interpreting the stars for boldface names (just as she once did for Allen, who was not impressed). One paid psychic client, the late Pop Minimalist artist Patrick Nagel, gifted her the original piece above her living room sofa. It's here, with a portfolio of her yellowed and brittle modeling photos in hand, that Engelhardt travels into her past.
Open and thoughtful, Engelhardt unspools a life story that took root in a strict German immigrant household and blossomed into a Zelig-esque series of adventures as she attempted to break into modeling: partying with Iman, jet-setting with Adnan Khashoggi, dining with Stephen King, working as a personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier later convicted for soliciting an underage girl. Following her time with Allen, she went on to become a platonic muse to Federico Fellini during the auteur's late-life journeys in Rome and Tulum, Mexico, then spent years tending to egos as a hostess in the executive dining room at Paramount before landing her current gig, working as an assistant for producer Bob Evans. What's made her attractive to these powerful men, both personally and professionally, she posits, is in part what Allen appreciated in the first place: "I was pretty enough, I was smart enough, I was non-confrontational, I was non-judgmental, I was discreet, and nothing shocks me."
She's already written, and kept private, two volumes of unpublished memoirs, one focusing on her Fellini years, the other on her time with Allen. In the latter, Engelhardt portrays a relationship of unequals. From their first rendezvous (quizzing her on the meaning of life, challenging her to a chess match, inviting her to watch a basketball game in his TV room, making out with her), terms were decreed by Allen. She considered him then, and still considers him now, a Great Man. She pushed back little if at all.
"I was a pleaser, agreeable," says Engelhardt, a fan of Allen long before they met. "Knowing he was a director, I didn't argue. I was coming from a place of devotion." They operated under two key unspoken rules: There'd be zero discussion about his work, and — owing to the celebrity's presumed necessity for privacy — they could only meet at his place. By her count, on more than 100 subsequent occasions, she'd visit him at his apartment at 930 Fifth Ave., where she'd invariably make her way to an upstairs bedroom facing Central Park.
"The curtains were always drawn," Engelhardt says. "The view must have been spectacular." She shrugs. "I wasn't there for the view."
Another element that may have factored into her dynamic with Allen, Engelhardt muses, was her German background. "I had been taunted, tormented as a 'Nazi child' in the Jewish neighborhood I grew up in: Matawan, New Jersey. [The family moved to a rural area of the state when she was a teenager.] My father ran around in lederhosen. I had doors slammed in my face." Her parents were both postwar emigres, her father — by his account — a 14-year-old ditch-digging conscript into Hitler's army serving near the French border before the end of the war. "Woody's the uber-Jew, and I'm the uber-German," she says. While the pair never discussed their difference, she contends it hovered, at least on her end: "There was a chip on my shoulder about wanting to please those who cast me aside. I wasn't confrontational because I thought, 'Nobody likes Germans.' "
By Engelhardt's recollection, about a year into the relationship, Allen occasionally began bringing in two other "beautiful young ladies" for threesomes. Engelhardt says she had experimented with bisexuality and at times found the experiences with Allen "interesting — a '70s exploration," she says.
But she felt differently when, after they'd been sleeping together for four years, Allen beamingly announced that he wanted to introduce her to his new "girlfriend." (Engelhardt had presumed she was the girlfriend.) It turned out to be Mia Farrow, who was 14 years older and already famous for Rosemary's Baby and The Great Gatsby.
In her manuscript, Engelhardt writes, "I felt sick. I didn't want to be there at all, and yet I couldn't find the courage to get up and leave. To leave would mean an end to all of this. Looking back now, that's exactly what I needed, but back then, the idea of not having Woody in my life at all terrified me. So I sat there, patiently, calmly trying to assess the situation, trying to understand why he wanted the two of us to meet."
Despite the initial shock of jealousy, Engelhardt says she grew to like Farrow over the course of the "handful" of three-way sex sessions that followed at Allen's penthouse as they smoked joints and bonded over a shared fondness for animals. ("When Mia was there, we'd talk about astrology, and Woody was forced to listen," she laughs.) Engelhardt writes in her manuscript, "There were times the three of us were together, and it was actually great fun. We enjoyed each other when we were in the moment. She was beautiful and sweet, he was charming and alluring, and I was sexy and becoming more and more sophisticated in this game. It wasn't until after it was done when I really had time to think of how twisted it was when we were together … and how I was little more than a plaything." She continues, "While we were together, the whole thing was a game that was being operated solely by Woody so we never quite knew where we stood."
"I used to think this was a form of mother-father with the two of them," says Engelhardt. "To me, that whole relationship was very Freudian: how I admired them, how he'd already broken me in, how I let that be all right."
As for Farrow, she explains, "I always had the impression that she was doing this because he wanted it." Engelhardt recalls when the story broke about Allen's relationship with Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn (now his wife of nearly 21 years). "I felt sorry for Mia," she says. "I thought, 'Didn't Woody have enough 'extra,' with or without her, that the last thing he had to do was to go for something that was totally hers?'
"He had groomed Mia, trained her, to put up with all of this. Now he had no barriers. It was total disrespect." (Farrow declined to comment on this story.)
Soon-Yi Previn Breaks Silence on Woody Allen Sexual Assault Claims, Alleges Years of Abuse by Mia Farrow
"But what's happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust. [Mia] has taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about it when they shouldn't."
6:09 PM PDT 9/16/2018 by Kimberly Nordyke
Getty Images
Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn
Soon-Yi Previn, wife of filmmaker Woody Allen, has weighed in on the controversy surrounding her husband and his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow and ex-partner Mia Farrow in a story published online Sunday on New York Magazine's website Vulture.
"I was never interested in writing a Mommie Dearest, getting even with Mia — none of that," Previn said in the story. "But what's happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust. [Mia] has taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about it when they shouldn't."
Dylan told Vulture in a statement that any implication she was manipulated by mom Mia was "offensive."
"This only serves to revictimize me," Dylan said. "Thanks to my mother, I grew up in a wonderful home."
Dylan's brother Ronan, one of her strongest supporters, issued the following statement in response to the story: "I owe everything I am to Mia Farrow. She is a devoted mom who went through hell for her family all while creating a loving home for us. But that has never stopped Woody Allen and his allies from planting stories that attack and vilify my mother to deflect from my sister’s credible allegation of abuse. As a brother and a son, I’m angry that New York Magazine would participate in this kind of a hit job, written by a longtime admirer and friend of Woody Allen’s. As a journalist, I’m shocked by the lack of care for the facts, the refusal to include eyewitness testimony that would contradict falsehoods in this piece, and the failure to include my sister’s complete responses. Survivors of abuse deserve better."
The Vulture story was written by Daphne Merkin, who notes in the piece that she's been friends with Allen for more than 40 years. An online search yields several stories detailing her close relationship with the filmmaker over the years, noting on her website that her first fan letter was from Allen, telling the New York Times that he once offered her his therapist and telling the New York Post that they "share our Holocaust books." She also gushes over Allen in her book The Fame Lunches, noting that she wrote him a letter in her early 20s and that "I had fixed on [Allen] as my alter ego" and that "he was the perfect non-celebrity for a non-groupie like me."
Dylan also tweeted out a lengthy statement in response to the story:
New York Magazine spokesperson Lauren Starke defended the story earlier in the day, saying: "Soon-Yi Previn is telling her story for the first time, and we hope people will withhold judgment until they have read the feature. Daphne Merkin’s relationship to Woody Allen is disclosed and is a part of the story, as is Soon-Yi’s reason for speaking out now. I would add that Daphne approached Soon-Yi about doing this piece, not vice-versa. We reached out to both Mia and Dylan Farrow for comment; Dylan chose to speak through her representative. The story is transparent about being told from Soon-Yi’s point of view."
Later Sunday, Starke added: "This is a story about Soon-Yi Previn, and puts forward her perspective on what happened in her family. We believe she is entitled to be heard. Daphne Merkin’s relationship to Woody Allen is disclosed and is a part of the story, as is Soon-Yi’s reason for speaking out now. We hope people will read it for themselves."
In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in December, Dylan accused Allen of sexually molesting her as a child. Allen has denied those claims and an investigation in 1993 found that he had not sexually assaulted her. But at a 1993 custody ruling, a judge said that while "we will probably never know what occurred on August 4, 1992 ... Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and ... measures must be taken to protect her.” Dylan was removed from Allen's custody.
In May, Allen's adoptive son Moses defended Allen against Dylan's allegations and claimed their mother, Mia, was physically and emotionally abusive. Previn has also claimed that Mia was abusive.
Dylan's brother Ronan then came to his mom Mia's defense on social media, writing: "Not worth saying much to dignify the repeated campaign to discredit my sister, often by attacking our mother. This happens every time Dylan speaks, so this is all I’ll offer: My mother did an extraordinary job raising us, and none of my siblings with whom I’ve spoken ever witnessed anything but love and care from a single mom who went through hell to keep her kids safe."
Allen and many other of his family supporters claim that Mia manipulated Dylan into making false sexual assault allegations as payback.
Dylan Farrow Blasts Woody Allen for Undermining Claims With His #MeToo Comments
Previn, who was adopted by Farrow and then-husband Andre Previn in 1978, began a romantic relationship with Allen in 1991. At the time, Allen was still in a long-term relationship with Farrow. Soon-Yi and Allen later married in 1997.
"I am a pariah," Allen told Vulture. "People think that I was Soon-Yi's father, that I raped and married my underaged, retarded daughter." He added that the couple's contribution to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was returned.
Previn went into depth about her relationship with Allen and history with Mia in the Vulture story.
Previn claims that she and Mia were "like oil and water" from the beginning. "Mia wasn't maternal to me from the get-go," she said.
She claimed that Mia's first attempt at bathing Previn didn't go well.
"I'd never taken a bath by myself, because in the orphanage it was a big tub and we all got in it," Previn said. "Here, it was for a single person, and I was scared to get in the water by myself. So instead of doing what you would do with an infant — you know, maybe get into the water, put some toys in, put your arm in to show that you're fine, it's not dangerous — she just kind of threw me in."
She also claimed there was a "hierarchy" among Mia's children: "She didn't try to hide it, and Fletcher was the star, the golden child. Mia always valued intelligence and also looks, blond hair and blue eyes."
Previn alleged that Mia tried teaching her the alphabet and got impatient to the point of throwing wooden blocks "at me or down on the floor. Who can learn under that pressure?"
Previn also claimed that Mia would write words on her arm to help her learn them or "tip me upside down, holding me by my feet, to get the blood to drain to my head. Because she thought — or she read it, God knows where she came up with the notion — that blood going to my head would make me smarter or something."
Previn also alleged that Mia would slap her face, spank her with a hairbrush, throw objects at her and call her "stupid" and "moronic." She also said that she and her adopted sisters were treated like "domestics," doing the grocery shopping, cleaning, ironing and other chores.
Asked if she has any positive memories of living with Mia, Previn said: "It seems hard to imagine, but I really can't come up with one."
Previn also goes into detail on how she began her relationship with Allen, noting that they were both consenting adults (she was 21).
She said she never thought of Allen as a father figure — Andre served that purpose, in her mind — and actually thought he was a "major loser" due to the fact that Mia proposed marriage just weeks after they began dating and then two weeks later told him she wanted to have a child with him.
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My Father, Woody Allen, and the Danger of Questions Unasked (Guest Column)
The two first interacted in a friendly capacity when she broke her ankle in 11th grade and he was helpful in taking care of her. But it wasn't until she was a freshman at college that they began their affair.
"We talked quite a bit," she explained, "and to the best of my memory I came in from college on some holiday and he showed me a Bergman movie, which I believe was The Seventh Seal, but I'm not positive. We chatted about it, and I must have been impressive because he kissed me and I think that started it. We were like two magnets, very attracted to each other."
She added: "I wasn't the one who went after Woody — where would I get the nerve? He pursued me. That's why the relationship has worked: I felt valued. It's quite flattering for me. He's usually a meek person, and he took a big leap."
Mia eventually learned of their affair when she found nude photos of Previn.
"I remember the phone call when she found the photos," Previn said. "I picked up the phone and Mia said, 'Soon-Yi.' That's all she needed to say, in that chilling tone of voice. I knew my life was over and that she knew, just by the way she said my name. When she came home, she asked me about it, and I — survival instinct — denied it. And then she said, 'I have photos.' So I knew I was trapped. Of course, she slapped me, you know the way of things. And then she called everyone. She didn't contain the situation; she just spread it like wildfire, and then she was screaming at Woody when he came over. Meanwhile, Dylan and Satchel [Ronan] are living under her roof and they are very small, 6 and 4 years old. They hear their mother going crazy, screaming in the middle of the night for hours."
Previn and Allen claimed that Mia was claiming that Previn was threatening suicide, which Previn said was a lie.
Allen's sister, Letty Aronson, claimed to Vulture that Mia told her around the time that she discovered Allen and Previn were having an affair: "'He took my daughter, I'm going to take his.' I said, 'Don't be ridiculous. [Dylan] loves Woody. A child should have a father.' She said, 'I don't care.'"
Meanwhile, Dylan late Sunday tweeted a statement on behalf of her and several of her siblings defending and standing behind Mia:
Mia is not quoted in the story, and Andre declined comment.
The Allen sexual assault scandal heated up after The Hollywood Reporterpublished a cover story on Allen in May 2016 and gained steam amid the #MeToo movement late last year. After THR posted its cover story, Dylan's brother Ronan Farrow wrote about the scandal for THR and the media's lack of attention to it.
Meanwhile, Allen also addressed rumors in the Vulture story that Ronan is the son of Mia's ex-husband Frank Sinatra, something Mia has not confirmed or denied. "In my opinion, he’s my child," Allen said. "I think he is, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. I paid for child support for him for his whole childhood, and I don’t think that’s very fair if he’s not mine. Also she represented herself as a faithful person, and she certainly wasn’t. Whether she actually became pregnant in an affair she had ..."
Days after multiple women accused Neil deGrasse Tyson of sexual harassment and assault, Fox Entertainment Group and the producers of the television series “Cosmos” said they were investigating the celebrity astrophysicist.
The allegations were reported Thursday on the website Patheos, which features writing on religion, science and the skeptic community. In the report, Bucknell University astronomer Katelyn Allers said Tyson grabbed her arm and reached into her dress while looking at a tattoo of the solar system. Ashley Watson, a former assistant to Tyson who worked on his latest “Cosmos” series, said she quit her job after Tyson made inappropriate sexual advances.
Patheos has previously reported allegations by musician Tchiya Amet, who said Tyson drugged and raped her when they were graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
Saturday night, Tyson posted a lengthy response to the allegations on Facebook. He wrote that he hadn’t recognized Allers’s and Watson’s discomfort at the time of the incidents they described. He acknowledged that he had a short relationship with Amet in the 1980s, but rejected her allegation of assault.
Tyson wrote that he would fully cooperate with the investigation into the allegations.
In a statement, the producers of “Cosmos” told The Washington Post that they are “committed to a thorough investigation of this matter and to act accordingly as soon as it is concluded. … The credo at the heart of COSMOS is to follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
Fox Entertainment and National Geographic, which air the show, said they had just become aware of the allegations and are reviewing the reports. 21st Century Fox jointly owns the National Geographic channel with the National Geographic Society.
In an interview with The Post, Watson described an uncomfortable night with Tyson in May 2018. She had been working as his assistant on the Santa Fe set of “Cosmos” for several months and was hoping that Tyson would ask her to continue working for him when production moved to Europe.
But when Tyson invited her to his home after a day on the set, Watson said, he removed his shirt so he was only wearing an undershirt and started to serve wine and cheese. At one point, Tyson pointed the knife at Watson, she alleged. He later spoke about how all people needed “release” and asked what hers was. When Watson tried to leave, Tyson asked her to perform a handshake he said he had learned from a Native American elder, which involved feeling a person’s pulse and staring into their eyes. She said he told her, “I want to hug you right now, but if I do I’ll just want more.”
“It felt very manipulative and strange,” Watson said of Tyson’s behavior. The hug comment made her particularly uncomfortable. “I felt like he was expressing that he wanted to have a sexual relationship with me.”
Two days later, Watson told a producer at Cosmos what had happened and said that she wanted to quit. The producer asked her whether she wanted to file a complaint, she said, but Watson declined. “I didn’t want to cause a fuss,” she told The Post.
The producer said he thought that was a good idea and suggested that she tell the rest of the crew that she had to leave for a family emergency, Watson said.
Watson provided The Post with a text describing the incident she sent to a friend several days later.
Producer Drew Dowdle, for whom Watson worked for seven months in 2017, told The Post that Watson told him about her experience with Tyson a few months after quitting “Cosmos.”
Tyson did not dispute the details of Watson’s account in his statement on Facebook. But he cast the encounter in a different light, saying his comment about the hug, for example, was intended “to express restrained but genuine affection.”
In an email to The Post, Allers confirmed the details of her experience as reported by Patheos but declined to comment further. She told Patheos that she did not report the incident, which she says occurred at a social event after a 2009 meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), because she didn’t think the society had a mechanism for reporting sexual harassment.
Kevin Marvel, executive officer of the AAS, said the society has not received any complaints involving Tyson since its code of conduct was implemented in 2008. He added that the society does not conduct investigations unless it has received a complaint. Tyson is an elected member of the AAS.
On Facebook, Tyson apologized to Allers, writing that he didn’t know she felt his behavior was “creepy.”
“In my mind’s eye,” he wrote, “I’m a friendly and accessible guy, but going forward, I can surely be more sensitive to people’s personal space, even in the midst of my planetary enthusiasm.”
Amet did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment from The Post.
Both Watson and Allers said they shared their accounts in hopes that they would lend credibility to Amet’s allegation, which she wrote about on her blog in 2014 and which was first reported by Patheos last year.
“I just feel like Neil needs to answer to these accusations,” Watson said. “If we don’t talk about these things, they’re not going to change.”
Official Statement by Dr. Tyson Saturday, December 1, 2018
For a variety of reasons, most justified, some unjustified, men accused of sexual impropriety in today’s “me-too” climate are presumed to be guilty by the court of public opinion. Emotions bypass due-process, people choose sides, and the social media wars begin.
In any claim, evidence matters. Evidence always matters. But what happens when it’s just one person’s word against another’s, and the stories don’t agree? That’s when people tend to pass judgment on who is more credible than whom. And that’s when an impartial investigation can best serve the truth – and would have my full cooperation to do so.
I’ve recently been publically accused of sexual misconduct. These accusations have received a fair amount of press in the past forty-eight hours, unaccompanied by my reactions. In many cases, it’s not the media’s fault. I declined comment on the grounds that serious accusations should not be adjudicated in the press. But clearly I cannot continue to stay silent. So below I offer my account of each accusation.
The 2009 Incident
I am asked by thousands of people per year to take pictures with them. A flattering, time consuming, but delightful chore. As many in my fan-base can attest, I get almost giddy if I notice you’re wearing cosmic bling – clothing or jewelry or tattoos that portray the universe, either scientifically or artistically. And I make it a priority to point out these adornments for the photograph.
A colleague at a well attended, after-conference, social gathering came up to me to ask for a photograph. She was wearing a sleeveless dress with a tattooed solar system extending up her arm. And while I don’t explicitly remember searching for Pluto at the top of her shoulder, it is surely something I would have done in that situation. As we all know, I have professional history with the demotion of Pluto, which had occurred officially just three years earlier. So whether people include it or not in their tattoos is of great interest to me. I was reported to have “groped” her by searching “up her dress”, when this was simply a search under the covered part of her shoulder of the sleeveless dress.
I only just learned (nine years after) that she thought this behavior creepy. That was never my intent and I’m deeply sorry to have made her feel that way. Had I been told of her discomfort in the moment, I would have offered this same apology eagerly, and on the spot. In my mind’s eye, I’m a friendly and accessible guy, but going forward, I can surely be more sensitive to people’s personal space, even in the midst of my planetary enthusiasm.
She is a talented, warm and friendly person -- excellent traits for morale on a high pressure production. Practically everyone she knows on set gets a daily welcome-hug from her. I expressly rejected each hug offered frequently during the Production. But in its place I offered a handshake, and on a few occasions, clumsily declared, “If I hug you I might just want more.” My intent was to express restrained but genuine affection.
In the final week of shooting, with just a few days left, as a capstone of our friendship, I invited her to wine & cheese at my place upon dropping me off from work. No pressure. I serve wine & cheese often to visitors. And I even alerted her that others from the production were gathering elsewhere that evening, so she could just drop me off and head straight there or anywhere elsewhere. She freely chose to come by for wine & cheese and I was delighted. In the car, we had started a long conversation that could continue unabated. Production days are long. We arrived late, but she was on her way home two hours later.
Afterwards, she came into my office to told me she was creeped out by the wine & cheese evening. She viewed the invite as an attempt to seduce her, even though she sat across the wine & cheese table from me, and all conversation had been in the same vein as all other conversations we ever had.
Further, I never touched her until I shook her hand upon departure. On that occasion, I had offered a special handshake, one I learned from a Native elder on reservation land at the edge of the Grand Canyon. You extend your thumb forward during the handshake to feel the other person’s vital spirit energy -- the pulse. I’ve never forgotten that handshake, and I save it in appreciation of people with whom I’ve developed new friendships.
At that last meeting in my office, I apologized profusely. She accepted the apology. And I assured her that had I known she was uncomfortable, I would have apologized on the spot, ended the evening, and possibly reminded her of the other social gathering that she could attend. She nonetheless declared it her last day, with only a few days left of production.
I note that her final gesture to me was the offer of a hug, which I accepted as a parting friend.
Early 1980s
I entered astrophysics graduate school directly out of college in 1980. It’s a grueling adventure-marathon, and many people do not finish the PhD. In fact, it was not uncommon for half the admitted students to leave after two or three years, finding some other kind of work in their lives. While in graduate school I had several girlfriends, one of whom would become my wife of thirty years, a mathematical physicist -- we met in Relativity class. Over this time I had a brief relationship with a fellow astro-graduate student, from a more recent entering class. I remember being intimate only a few times, all at her apartment, but the chemistry wasn’t there. So the relationship faded quickly. There was nothing otherwise odd or unusual about this friendship.
I didn't see much of her after that time. Our student offices were on different floors of the building and we were not in the same classes. A few years later, I ran into her, pregnant, with who I think was the father by her side. That’s when I had learned that she dropped out of graduate school. Again, this is not itself an unusual fact, but I nonetheless wished her well in motherhood and in whatever career path would follow.
More than thirty years later, as my visibility-level took another jump, I read a freshly posted blog accusing me of drugging and raping a woman I did not recognize by either photo or name. Turned out to be the same person who I dated briefly in graduate school. She had changed her name and lived an entire life, married with children, before this accusation.
For me, what was most significant, was that in this new life, long after dropping out of astrophysics graduate school, she was posting videos of colored tuning forks endowed with vibrational therapeutic energy that she channels from the orbiting planets. As a scientist, I found this odd. Meanwhile, according to her blog posts, the drug and rape allegation comes from an assumption of what happened to her during a night that she cannot remember. It is as though a false memory had been implanted, which, because it never actually happened, had to be remembered as an evening she doesn’t remember. Nor does she remember waking up the next morning and going to the office. I kept a record of everything she posted, in case her stories morphed over time. So this is sad, which, for me, defies explanation.
I note that this allegation was used as a kind of solicitation-bait by at least one journalist to bring out of the woodwork anybody who had any encounter with me that left them uncomfortable.
Overview
I’m the accused, so why believe anything I say? Why believe me at all?
That brings us back to the value of an independent investigation, which FOX/NatGeo (the networks on which Cosmos and StarTalk air) announced that they will conduct. I welcome this.
Accusations can damage a reputation and a marriage. Sometimes irreversibly. I see myself as loving husband and as a public servant – a scientist and educator who serves at the will of the public. I am grateful for the support I’ve received from those who continue to respect and value me and my work.
Respectfully submitted, Neil deGrasse Tyson, New York City
