Mar

31

Duke White Guys Gone Wilding

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Update:Tiffany at Blackfeminism.org has an excellent post to elaborate of how the slang of the late 80s ended up leading to the media and police coining the concept of wilding.

The Duke Lacrosse team rape case has really touched a nerve with me, and one of the things that bothers me most is the discrepancies between how White mens crimes and black mens crimes are covered in the popular media. Since it is no longer politically correct to use blatant racist language or explicitly racial terms in these cases, we have to look beyond the surface. Black men who are accused of committing crimes against Whites, especially White women, are not directly labeled scary Black men but everything about the way the story is told promotes the scary out of control Black man persona. One of the most troubling ways this is done is by the use of special terms coined in honor of Black mens crimes or criminal involvement.

The most famous example of this is the term wilding. The term wilding was used to describe the attack of a White woman in Central Park in the late 1980s. Scared Whites suddenly worried that groups of young Black and Latino men would descend on innocent White women and attack them, like? what was? supposedly done to this woman. The term was almost exclusively used for young Black and Brown men, and as such has became synonymous with them. What is even more striking it that through DNA evidence and a confession by an imprisoned man, we later found out that this group of young men didnt attack the Central Park jogger and in 2002 their sentences were vacated (DNA evidence confirmed that it was a lone attacker, who was a Latino man.).

Why not use the term wilding to talk about what the rape survivor said happened at Duke. One of the regular commenters on my blog, Anthony, reminded me of this term, when he argued that the attack at Duke was an example of wilding. I wondered if popular media outlets will use the term wilding, or will they come up with some special code word that referred to groups of young White men who attack women (especially Black women). Probably not. When White men behave badly it is usually framed as a problem with the individual White man or the small group of White men involved, but it is almost never a collective statement about the problems with White guys in America.

Another example of this is the whole Stop Snitching phenomenon, which has been labeled as a huge threat to the criminal justice system. The term Stop Snitching has been connected with an underground video out of Baltimore. Stop Snitchin has also been advertised on T-shirts that have become very popular mostly among young urban Black and Brown kids. If you watched shows like Americas Most Wanted or the nightly news, you would think the Stop Snitchin phenomenon is new and young Black men created it. However, it doesnt take a genius to figure out that the idea of not snitchin has been around for a long time, way before Hip Hop and way before the T-shirts. In fact, I was watching the Abrams Report, since he has been covering the Duke case, and he kept alluding to the editorial that he was going to do at the end of the show. The editorial was about Stop Snitchin. My initial reaction was good somebody finally gets it. These Duke boys are living by the Stop Snitchin code of ethics. Its not just poor Black and Brown people and Hip Hop artists. Well much to my chagrin Abrams didnt even connect the Duke case to this phenomenon even though it was so blatantly obviousthe Duke lacrosse players need to start snitchin.

The trend of giving special labels to Black mens bad behavior (or in some cases alleged bad behavior) makes it seem as if Black men invented gang rape or the code of silence that prevents snitchin. If the young wealthy White men can hide beyond their attorneys and say they are not snitchin on advice of counsel, the outcome is the similarthe crime is harder to solve. If a group of these White guys decide to have a party where they invite strippers and engage in wilding, the outcome is similar–another woman is sexually assaulted. Unfortunately, most people (especially White folks) in American culture dont see these behaviors as similar. They think that one Black person’s bad behavior is somehow representative of all Black people, not the individual Black person or people involved. They think subconsciously or consciously that Black men are dangerous and White men are the innocent boys next door. So next time you hear a special lable for Black men’s bad behavior. Please think twice.

PS–And just as a side note, the attorney for the Duke lacrosse players needs to think twice before he decides to describe the rush to judgment of these young men as a lynch mob mentality. Lynch mobs didnt kill White men who were accused of sexually assaulting Black women. Read your history.