Dec

13

Rachel’s Tavern is Number One…

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Blogs Blogging Blogthropology, Duke Rape, Gender and Sexism, Interracial Relationships, Race and Racism, Sexuality and Heterosexism | 12 Comments

if you search AOL for “white women who crave the mandingo men.”

Jun

26

It’s About Interracial Sex Folks

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Family Issues, Gender and Sexism, Interracial Relationships, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sexuality and Heterosexism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 93 Comments

Ok,? I’d be remiss? if I didn’t say something about the latest crime to become a media circus.? I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the? murder of Jessie Davis, who was almost? 9 months pregnant and was likely killed in front of her two year old child by the child’s father.? Since Davis and Cutts were a? black/white couple and I am someone? who? studies black/white interracial relationships and who is in a black/white interracial relationship, I know many people are wondering what I think about this case.? I’m not here to offer any opinions on the particulars of the case1 , but I do want to talk about the media coverage of the case.

I went around to a few blogs, and I visited AOL Blackvoices and a couple white supremacist message boards to see what they were saying, and quite frankly it was horrible.? Many people were saying that the victim deserved it; that she was “white trash;” that her child was ugly; and that she was a sleazy, homewrecking whore.? ? Not surprisingly,? the accused murderer, who is the poster boy for anti-black stereotypes, was also being trashed as? a violent womanizer who? lusted? after white women.? I can’t tell you how many racist and misogynistic comments I read;? and not surprisingly the white supremacists were giddy over this case.2?

Terrence Says has a reasonable post, which anonymous bigots tried to take over in the comment thread, and in his post, Terrence engages with the question that many folks are thinking–is the media circus surrounding this case about race? Terrence cites a recent case of a white man who killed his white? wife and three children:

Today, like Bobby Cutts, Jr. who was arrested in Ohio, Christopher Vaughn was also arrested. Christopher Vaughn was arrested two hours prior to the funeral of his family in St. Charles County, Missouri (suburban St. Louis) where the family originated; yet, so far, there has not been a mention of Vaughn’s arrest that I have been able to observe on the weekend news shows.

As sad and tragic as the Jessie Davis story is, I can’t help but wonder if this story had involved a missing pregnant black or Latina woman if it would have the same media traction.

Well several of the anonymous commenters went crazy, saying that the case received so much attention because Davis was pregnant, because Cutts was a cop, because the child was left in the house alone, and everything but race.? I certainly agree that all of those things make the story more sensational, but I really can’t fathom that it is much more sensational than the Vaugh family case mentioned above.? However, I find myself having a slight disagreement with Terrence.? I agree that white women victims get much more attention than Black, Asian, Latino, and American Indian women, and I agree that race is a big factor in the media attention the case has gotten, but I would be more specific than Terrence.

It’s about interracial sex.? Interracial crimes make big sensational news stories, but crimes that involve interracial sexuality arouse the deepest passions of American bigotry.? The OJ Simpson case, the Duke Rape, the Kobe Bryant rape case, and now this one–they all have tremendous sexual overtones.? For a long time, I was surprised at how much attention the Duke case received, because I was focused on the fact that the accuser in the case was black, but I missed the mark.? It’s more than the races of the people involved; if the crime is perceived as involving interracial sex, something snaps in people, suddenly they perk up.

The truth of the matter is that the US is a culture obsessed with interracial sex, but nobody will say this in polite company.? During the slave era and the Jim Crow era, white people spoke with repulsion and disgust at interracial sex even though many white men were routinely engaging in sexual encounters with black women.? In the colorblind era, people are still obsessed with interracial sex.? However, they do not publicly say, “Wow, interracial sex is: bizarre, disgusting, exciting, adventurous, morally repugnant,” and so on.? That’s part of the reason nobody in the mainstream polite media is going to openly? say–”Damn that negro had two white baby mama’s.? He must have really been packing some heat below the belt.? Why else would those white women be interested in him?”? 3 Nobody is going to say, “Those white women are white trash, whores for sleeping with this black guy.? ? They probably only did it for his big dick.”? Nobody is going to say, “Why can’t these black men just take care of their kids and stopping hopping from bed to bed.? Only a white women with no self esteem will get with a guy like that.”? They are not saying these dispargaing comments? publicly, but when they get home to their families and friends, they are saying it.? When they go on line to search for interracial porn, they are thinking it.? When they can leave anonymous comments on blogs, they are expressing it.

I think my traffic at this site is evidence for the American obsession with? race and? sex.? Within the last week here are a select few searches I have received:

  • black men impregnating white women stories
  • savages on blondes
  • Biracial family pictures black and white
  • BLACK ATHLETE MARRYING WHITE WOMEN
  • Black men breeding white girls
  • black negro slave woman naked pictures
  • black women with white men in adult movies
  • differences between white and black women’s breasts
  • blacks in bed sexing
  • george lucas in love black women
  • how do you feel about interracial relationship

And this was a really slow week, I’ve gotten at least 100 searches over the past few months for “savages on blondes,” which was a popular racist pornographic website featuring black men who act like “savages” who want to have sex with white women.? I mentioned that site exactly one time on this blog, and I still get people looking for it.?

For some reason, people think interracial sex is exotic and daring, particularly when it involves Black men and white women and? Asian women and white men.? Numerous people, who clearly have no random sample to draw from believe that race is correlated with penis size.? They believe? race is correlated with a person’s level of sexual desire.? They believe people who engage in interracial sex are deviant, rebellious, daring, gross, odd, oversexed, and ugly. But,? most of them will not admit it publicly.? Instead they go home and post horrible messages? discussion boards. (Probably while masturbating to interracial porn.)? They try their best to hide their discomfort, but most interracial couples can? see how the stares? they get in public often belie the facade of tolerance.

When it comes to interracial sexuality, the US is still not ready to come to grips with our racism, and the discomfort with? the intersection of race and sexuality? fuels the public obession with many interracial crimes.

NOTE TO READERS: I know this thread is going to be an ultra-sensitive subject, and white supremacist trolls will likely be coming out of the woodwork, so I am limiting this thread to anti-racists and racial abolitionists only.? Moreover, this is not a thread to debate the merits of any of the cases mentioned in the text, so let’s focus on the larger issues.? ? Finally, anyone who leaves bigoted white supremacist comments will be banned immediately.

  1. I also want to say that my heart goes out to the? family of Jessie Davis and her child.? I hope they are able to get justice in this case. [back]
  2. I have a policy of not linking to organized white supremacist sites, but you can check out the big ones to see what they are saying. [back]
  3. I don’t know if his wife is white or not, so I can’t comment on the third baby mama. [back]

Apr

5

Duke Rape: The search warrant for the second residence has been released….

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Education and Academia, Gender and Sexism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Apr 05 2006
 ?
Duke Rape: The search warrant for the second residence has been released….
Updated with important new details.? ?

Today was a big day for updates in teh Duke case. The lacrosse coach has resigned and the University has suspended the entire season for the team.
Here is a quote from the Raleigh News Observer:

Coach Pressler offered me his resignation earlier this afternoon, and I accepted it, Duke athletics director Joe Alleva said in a statement released at 4:36 p.m. ?I fully support President Broadhead’s decision to cancel the remainder of the season as well as his outrage at the latest developments involving the men’s lacrosse program. I believe this is in the best interests of the program, the department of athletics and the university.

However, the most important update comes from the newly released affadavit for the second search warrant. The Smokinggun has a copy of the search warrant here. While the search warrant reveals more details from the case, the biggest news is the following email message sent by one of the players just after the victim reported being assaulted. The email sent by Ryan McFayden says,

Well the young man who wrote this email has been suspended from Duke University. His lawyer says for his own safety–it’s rather hard for me to buy this one, but this is his lawyer. The email was anonymously sent to the police (looks like somebody is cooperating behind the scenes.

A close read of the affidavit, insinuates possible premeditation because the men intentionally used the wrong names and said they were part of the Duke baseball or track teams. She also noted that the man who called himself Adam, was called Dan by people at the party. However, I would need a little more evidence to definitevely say it was premeditated.

The email alone is enough to make me sick. It doesn’t prove he raped someone, but it sure shows he has depraved fantasies.

The email above is clear evidence of the lack of character (my edit: depravity) of at least one of these young men.

Apr

1

More Duke Rape Updates

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Gender and Sexism, Race and Racism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Apr 01 2006
 ?
More Duke Rape Updates
1. The local Durham paper has some quotes from the district attorney Mr. Nifong. We probably won’t be hearing anything for a while.

2. A good story from the local paper that details how forensic evidence in collected in rape cases. It also raised the question as to why it took so long to gather evidence.

3. Some are questioning the timeline of the two calls to police. Here is the link to the story.

I don’t expect that we will be hearing much about the case until the DNA evidence comes back in a few weeks, but I did read at least one report where the DA was saying that if they don’t have DNA he doesn’t want to go ahead with the case. I’m nor sure if that report is correct or not because earlier he was saying that he is confident that he can win the case without DNA. We’ll see what happens.

Mar

31

More Updates on the Duke Lacrosse Racist Rape

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Gender and Sexism, Race and Racism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Mar 31 2006
 ?
More Updates on the Duke Lacrosse Racist Rape
I should start by reminding everybody that Justice 4 Two Sisters is following the case closely. So many bloggers (EL, April, Terrance, Stephanie, Sharon, Tiffany, and many others) have been following this story closely. Feel free to put your links to your postings in the comment section or links to particularly good analyses.

1. The victims father speaks out to a local TV station. Including this statement,

The man described what his daughter looked like when she was released from a hospital.

“Her face was all swollen up, her jaw. She couldn’t half walk. One of her legs was hurt,” he said.

The alleged victim, an N.C. Central University student, mother of two and part-time exotic dancer, had been hired to perform at a party. That was when she claimed the sexual assault took place. The attorney for the lacrosse players said the men are innocent.

“There is no doubt in my mind, because I’ve seen the look in her face. I’ve seen the bruises on her face,” the alleged victim’s father said.

The man said his daughter’s physical scars pale in comparison to the emotional ones, and that he hopes his daughter finds new ways to make ends meet.

2. Duke University Student Government. Also includes an interesting link to a pro-feminist men’s group.

3. The lawyers representing the players call the media hype a “lynch mob” and give a hint at what their strategy is going to be–the victim staged it and the DA is out to get re-elected (classic condemn the condemners strategy).

4. Student activists continue protesting. It seems that some students are quietly posting banners supporting the team, while other are openly protesting. They have also noted that this is not the first incident where a LAX player has been accused of racism (one put a black face picture on Facebook and the other is said to have made comments about Black fraternity members eating watermelon and chicken.)

4. National and International media descend on Duke. (So my claim that this would not make national news was wrong. Thank goodness.)

5. This is a very good story from the Raleigh News Observer. They say that the police are confident that the earlier call about the racial slur did not come from the victim. They also say when police showed up at the house to investigate the slur no one answered. I also encourage people to listen to the full 911 tapes posted on this page. I am confident that the first caller is a White woman. (Definitely worth reading if you are following the case. The Raleigh paper has had much better coverage than the national media.)

6. The Duke Chronicletakes a decidedly apologist turn in defense of the lacrosse team, saying things like the racial slurs were alleged. The headline says, “White, Black-or Duke?” a very typical colorblind phrasing. (I have not seen that neighbor who over heard the racial slurs back down one iota–I guess the student paper is insinuating that the victim and the neighbor are lying. Here we go.) Here is a markedly different editorial from a Black woman at the school (make sure to read the anonymous comments left at the bottom and note that at 3PM eastern time there were not comments on the White, Black-orDuke? article.)

7. An article out of Australia that uses the stop snitchin’ analogy like similar to the one I made in the earlier post.

8. And last but not least someone who says, he believes that the “Duke Raping” never occurred.
?

Mar

29

Updates on Duke Lacrosse Team Racist Rape

Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Duke Rape, Gender and Sexism, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Mar 29 2006
 ?
Updates on Duke Lacrosse Team Racist Rape
On a positive note this story is blowing up the blogosphere, and seems to be getting some of the national attention it deserves. The New York Times has the story on the front page today. Several people also saw the story on the Today Show, CNN, Rita Cosby, and hopefully others.?

I also wanted to call attention to the two tapes of 911 calls posted on The News Observer’s website. It includes one by a white women, who was calling to report that she and her black girlfriend (her words there) were subjected to racial slurs while driving in front of the house around the time of the rape. (More evidence of the racism surrounding this incident.)

1. The team captains have released a statement denying the allegations. Obviously something written up by their lawyer. The Smoking Gun has the search warrant (A must read.)

2. The primary blog in support of the women attacked can be found here Justice 4 Two Sisters.

3. Some blogs are printing the names and hometowns of the players. Blogger David Wright has posted the pictures, home towns, and parents names of all of the Long Island players involved in this. I just want people to note that almost all of the team members were from the North, and many of them are from you guessed it Long Island. I knew that before I saw the pictures because you won’t find too many lacrosse teams south of the Mason Dixon line. This kind of racism is not a “southern thing” only.

4. Sharon Cullars is starting a campaign to get Dateline NBC to cover the story. Here is the link.

5. Amp over at Alas a Blog has posted a round-up of some of the coverage.

6. I also wanted to note that the following bloggers have added the story
Blackfeminism.org, Bomani Jones (who is also doing coverage for ESPN–good somebody I like. LOL!), Sharon Cullars, Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Ipinions, Feministe, Republic of T, Stephanie’s Journal, Lucky White Girl, Yvette Perry,and Slanttruth . for the others who I missed. Please post in the comment section.

Mar

27

More on Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

Filed Under Duke Rape, Education and Academia, Gender and Sexism, Interracial Relationships, Race and Racism, Sexuality and Heterosexism, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

BOT with updates this afternoon……. This was originally posted on March 27, 2006. I am moving it back to the top. I am making it my personal mission to get the word out this terrible story. 46 members of the Duke Lacrosse team are taking DNA tests after some of the players were accused of gang raping a woman who they invited to be a dancer at a party. I also don’t want people to think abou this story as a gender issue, but as incident that reveals how racism, sexism, and classism intersected to make this young woman particularly vulnerable to a sexual assault. If you read this report from ABC News you will hear very little about race. However, if you this story you get a better idea of what most likely went on. A group of young wealthy White men felt that it was ok to assault this woman, raping her and yelling racial slurs at her. This should be blowing up in the blogosphere folks. This is also one of those “if this had happen to a White woman would we have already heard about it” stories. Here’s what the local paper said happened,

The woman who says she was raped last week by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team thought she would be dancing for five men at a bachelor party, she said Friday. But when she arrived that night, she found herself surrounded by more than 40. Just moments after she and another exotic dancer started to perform, she said, men in the house started barking racial slurs. The two women, both black, stopped dancing. “We started to cry,” she said. “We were so scared.”

The women subsequently left the party, but decided to come back after one of the men apologized. When the women went back into the party, “Two males then pulled the victim into a bathroom as three men sexually assaulted her for an approximate 30-minute time period, according to the warrant,” according to the student newspaper The woman was able to get away and call the police, and she was subsequently admitted to the hosptial. When the police came to the house to investiagte, the men refused to cooperate, and now the police are testing 46 out of 47 of the men on the team ( I saw one report saying that the victim’s cell phone, purse, and an acrylic fingernail were found at the house when they finally got in.). I understand that these young men are legally innocent until proven guilty, but the evidence in this case seems very strong. On a more positive note, the student paper is reporting that about 250 students and community members have been protesting for 3 days outside of the house where the incident happened. It seems that the house has receive complaints from neighbors in the past. The young woman is a student at North Carolina Central University (a historically Black University), and she is the mother of two. She was working for the escort service as a dancer to support her family and pay for college. The race/class/gender dynamics of this whole case are really scary, and they reveal a great deal about out power structure inthis country. This young woman ended up in the vulnerable position of being a sex worker because she was trying to better her family and her education. The two young women left the party after the racial slurs began and they feared for their safety, but I can’t help wondering if they were thinking about how they were going to pay their bills or feed their kids when they went back in, something most of these young men don’t even have to think about. I wonder if these guys were thinking about how much power they had over this young women when they yelled racist slurs and when they physically and sexually assault this women? I also wonder if those guys who remained silent were more concerned about protecting their buddies than stopping this terrible assault. How much do they think this woman’s life is worth? One of the people quoted in the student paper said that the school spends so much time protecting students from the people in the community, but in this case cleary shows how the people in the community also need to be protected from the students. I encourage people to put up the story on their blogs, and put pressure on the University to investigate the team and level some sort of disciplinary actions, and of course this legal system also needs to do its part to put these men behind bars. I think one way people in the blogosphere may be able to help, in addition to agitating for the full force of the law to come down on these men, is by setting up some sort of fund to help this young woman pay for college (if anybody knows how this can be done). (Thanks to Baft Rage for the heads up on this.)?

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.