Unless one has lived under a rock his entire life, it is quite obvious that high profile ‘white women in peril stories’ involving black male suspects always leads to a focus on race. Yet white people (including white liberals) will often deny, ignore, object, censor and/or become outright hostile whenever their racial sensibilities are questioned or challenged when it comes to white women perceived to be threatened by black males. We saw this ‘quiet white riot’ hostility both during and after the O.J. Simpson trial, the Central Park jogger case in New York City, and even here on Booman Tribune when addressing the Natalee Holloway case.
Perhaps I let my guard down but I never made the jump that Natalee Hollaway was raped until I read this . When I heard that a missing young woman was last known to be drunk and off with strangers including a European, two coloured men, and perhaps the club D.J., I thought it was possible that they were out on a drug run. It sounds like it could be the regular cast of characters out for a good high. However, I’m to be faulted for forgetting that the opinions I hear will be from Americans and that when black strangers are involved with a pretty blonde woman, then the only assumption they will make is that the black men are sexually driven to have sex at any cost with this ‘blonde trophy.’
The most recommended diary on Booman the past two days is based on the premise that Natalee Holloway was raped and though the author of the diary acted responsibly by later clarifying that she didn’t mean to implicate any suspects, that didn’t stop others from taking the ball and running with it. One poster even had the alleged perps confessing to their uncontrolled lasciviousness.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected any better, even among self-proclaimed liberals. Here in New York, we have a contested district attorney’s race for the first time in decades. What prompted a judge to enter the race ? She was outraged that the D.A. successfully petitioned to vacate the convictions of five young black men who were wrongfully convicted in the notorious rape of a white woman in Central Park over ten years ago. Never mind that the real rapist confessed and evidence supports the D.A.’s decision. These are black boys released for the rape of a high profile white woman and that cannot pass without repercussions.
Question these assumptions about black men and their intentions with white women and you will be called “angry” (i.e., prone to violence), “playing the race card” (i.e., invoking your 14th Amendment equal protection rights), or told to just shut up. It’s time for many so-called liberals to take off their blinders and acknowledge that race does matter, it is pervasive in all facets of our society, and if you’re not doing something to address the issue then you are part of the problem.
I have no horse in this race (no pun intended!) but reco’ it because the question deserves a hearing.
Good writing, too.
I haven’t followed the Halloway story so I was unaware that rape entered into it either. Mind you, after the first couple of days I didn’t think she was off on a drug run or voluntarily absent either… mostly I thought she was dead.
That diary you reference I thought went (mostly) into broader issues of rape and women in general, being able to live safely without taking drastic measures and so on. Good discussion, much of it.
On the other issue, I don’t think people often realize how much race is in the picture, whether they are aware of it or not. It’s in who the media decides to highlight, as well as in the reactions of viewers to the stories. It’s why some things are immediately accepted as believable to some people, while other things are…. ‘well, maybe, let’s see’.
Hopefully this diary will lead to discussions of preconceptions and things people may not even know they have (and some may not have them at all). Any number of people were raised with the poison of racial bias in their homes, and have worked (and are still working) to counteract that, which is one reason many are liberals. It’s all a work in progress though.
…once said that there is an inherent conflict in the judicial system if a black person is involved because when the Constitution was written it was never intended to apply to African-Americans. Even though the Constitution later was changed to include black people, the conflict is still there. As many of the legal principles we hold dear like reasonable doubt, reasonable suspicion, and preponderance of evidence are based on subjective criteria borne of societal influences, the social segregation of America has led to multiple and often conflicting interpretations of those principles.
The same behavior of a black man viewed as reasonably suspicious to white bystanders and police officers could easily be taken as innocuous by black people. The result can be the cops are called, an arrest takes place, or worse if a confrontation ensues. I’ve known black men stopped and questioned just for walking or driving in unfamiliar white neighborhoods; detained and handcuffed for moving furniture into their own homes while white neighbors assumed a robbery was taking place; and pulled over repeatedly while driving nice automobiles with no infraction cited. And black women are assumed to be shoplifting so often that just this year the N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had to levy a six figure fine against Macy’s Department Stores for civil rights violations.
The people making the assumptions may not believe they are doing anything bigoted or even wrong (although that sometimes seems difficult to believe), but these events, sometimes minor and sometimes not, compounded over a period of time lead to a frustrating (or often much, much worse) life for many who are the continued subject of such assumptions and suspicions. Consequently, there is an inherent suspicion of authority in the black community that leads to close scrutiny of the standards under which black suspects are detained or charged.
Thanks for posting the judge’s comments. I’d never thought of it like that before, but now that I have it makes sense.
A phrase Chris mentioned in the previous diary, used by someone or other when referring to hate crimes, struck me as very appropriate in many ways: a “massive dead-weight loss of freedom”.
This is, of course, applicable to the one of the subjects of that diary – women having to structure their lives and activities around personal safety/freedom of movement, etc issues, but it’s also something lived daily by a wide group of (mostly non-white) people who are essentially born ‘suspects’. Guilty ones, at that.
As a woman I have experienced (and still do) sexism throughout the years, with the added measure of racist sexism, which is a whole ‘nother story.
There is a long, long way to go in this and other countries on the subject of race, and of humanity in general, regardless of the political leanings of people one interacts with. I admit I didn’t realize this as much until I started reading liberal blogs and began coming across what were, for me, quite unexpected views and assumptions.
It’s a place to start though because I think, for some, the actual personal interaction with people of another culture one can get at least electronically is something that there may be not enough opportunity for them to have in their daily lives.
Or something like that.
Reading over that, I realized that while I know me, it’s quite likely a good many other people don’t, and so that might seem a bit ambiguous.
My meaning was that as a Black woman, many of the situations I’ve encountered involving sexism often have had the added overlay of racism. Either one is pretty nasty by itself, together… well, doubly so.
Sorry for any confusion.
I found the diary on personal safety/freedom very interesting because it went to something so fundamental as the space you are able to move in and would definitely affect people across class and race.
I often wonder whether most issues that white ‘feminists’ find critical or important resonate in the same way among women of color. My hunch is no because white women do not have the same concerns or challenges for the integrity of the traditional family as an institution in their commnities. I’d be interested in seeing a diary on that subject.
It would definitely be interesting to see a diary on that… I’m too quiet a writer so I may not be the best one to do one, but I might try my hand at it if no one else does.
I think, though, that possibly many of the same issues are important across the board, but maybe not for the same reasons. Even if all the roads lead to the same destination, the reasons for being on the road in the first place vary, no doubt, according to what is personally important or how you view its importance to your overall society.
Of course, there is probably great difference of opinion on this, even among women of color, depending on upbringing – religious influences, family structure and so on. Education comes into it too, but I suspect that may not make as big a difference on some issues.
I know there are other personal politics involved, but I do hope people will give the point of view expressed in this diary serious consideration. One of the things that disturbs me most about people on our side is our occasional blithe disregard for the concept of presumption of innocence. Believe me, I know how it feels to be impatient with due process. But the facility with which some of us decide that – say – Michael Jackson is guilty of despicable behavior when our only source of said information is the very media we routinely mistrust on almost everything else gives me pause.
Were I to rewrite the diary GP refers to, I think I would be well advised to leave the offending sentence out. The essay would not suffer. And I thank Grand Poobah for the reminder to be careful of such assumptions.
I would be very much in favor of talking about race, but the tone of the diary is accusatory, dismissive and written by someone who yesterday told another poster to go to hell, so I am not anticipating anything productive coming from discussion that would ensue here.
I am willing to lay bare assumptions and question them — are you? It seems that quite a few of them have been made in this diary.
I take mild umbradge at the assertion in the parent diary that there can be no disacussion of the race politics of the Holloway case in a thread devoted to the sexual politics aspect. Some of us are capable of examining equations with multiple variables. Those who are not would benefit themselves by studying some algebra.
Yes, I found that a bit distubing as well. It seemed that as soon as race was brought into the conversation, much of the listening stopped and defensive reactions began. And unfortunately, but predictably, things escalated from there.
Still, an opening to conversation. Maybe.