Riding the tiger is hard work.

Once you decide that you really want to be in the tiger riding business, there’s no exit strategy. Eventually the tiger eats you after taking a bunch of bites. Now substitute racism for the tiger. And that’s the problem with a studio named after another feline.

Lionsgate.

“The 1619 Project was a great awakening and a true history that you probably never learned in school,” Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer falsely claimed, announcing the partnership between the Canadian movie studio, Oprah Winfrey, and the New York Times.

The press release promised that the partnership with the sleazy Canadian studio responsible for Saw, the Hunger Games, and Twilight, will usher in “an expansive portfolio of feature films” and “television series” based on the racist revisionist history promulgated by the New York Times.

Beyond the 1619 Project, Lionsgate made a deal with BuzzFeed to develop “socially relevant” movies for millennials

But wait. The woke business is starting to get shaky because the tiger’s hungry. All the time.

Jeremy Tardy, who has been recurring on Netflix’s Dear White People, revealed in a Facebook post Friday that he will not be returning for the Lionsgate TV-produced series’ upcoming fourth and final season “due to my experience with Lionsgate and their practices of racial discrimination.”

You can guess the content of Dear White People by the title. Its “success” no doubt helped impel Lionsgate to dive all the way into the racism business only to get bitten by the tiger.

In response, Lionsgate called the standoff that led to Tardy’s exit “a purely financial negotiation.”

Sure. But that’s how it works. You normalize false accusations of racism and they get used against you. 

As a result, Tardy was written off the series. He called out Lionsgate and Netflix over the move on a show whose focus is on racial injustice, questioning the companies’ support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

“These companies have recently released statements and even donations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. I am calling out their shameful practices of discrimination and racial inequality with regard to how they have historically undervalued and lowballed people of color. Politically correct lip service and symbolic gestures do not absolve you of the daily responsibility of doing business in a fair and equitable manner,” he wrote, “The fact that this has occurred behind the scenes of a show which purports to address systemic issues of racism and discrimination displays the very epitome of hypocrisy. Lionsgate. Netflix. I see you. We see you.”

Big Contracts Matter.

The more Lionsgate and Hollywood turns racism into their business model, the more they’ll be accused of racism. You ride the tiger, you get eaten.