"Prison rape, and the language of making someone “your bitch,” is an exercise in power and degradation. The prisoner doing the rape is the man, the prisoner being raped is reduced to the woman. When we rub our hands in glee at the thought of Holtzclaw being “reduced” to the status of his victims, we not only perpetuate this gendered and punitive justification of rape, but we further dehumanize his victims by reducing them to their violation."
The Establishment and
Exposing Men's Rights Activism
Exposing Men's Rights Activism
All of this is true. But at this time and place I have to say, "So what?"
Let me preface what I'm about to say with my truth: I hate all rape jokes -- including the rape of prisoners. Imagining somebody else's violation is ugly.
I don't make those jokes. I don't listen to them. Besides, these jokes are only funny to people who think they will never be arrested for something they didn't do-- which OUGHT TO INCLUDE a lot more of the white privileged population than the people of color population.
I really don't know too many black and brown people who haven't heard of a cousin or an uncle (or something) getting stitched up and threatened with jail for the very same thing their white buddy at the frat house went directly to rehab for.
So I hate prison rape jokes from a very deep place.
However, I'll still never be able to make myself actually say aloud that a rapist doesn't deserve to be raped.
Intellectually, I know that eye for an eye justice does indeed leave everybody blind. But this truth has nothing to do with what a predator like that actually deserves. Justice on that level, or revenge on that level, is bad for society. Eye for an eye begins a cycle that never ends.
But eye for an eye is justice. When a kid hits your kid you expect your kid to hit back. Eye for an is damn near instinctive and it is balanced. Eye for an eye in Holtzclaw's case is rape and he deserves it.
We don't wish eye-for-an-eye or wish rape on Holtzclaw for OUR OWN SAKES...not Holtzclaw's sake.
Emotionally speaking though? Part of me thinks he needs to understand the level of helplessness he inflicted on others down to his m*****f****** bone marrow. I can't imagine going through what those women went through. I especially can't imagine going through it as a sex worker or somebody who has an addiction problem and a record...who will never, ever be believed by police. (That's probably how the Grim Sleeper got away with killing 100s of black women)
I am going to work on feeling more forgiving. But if that day isn't today, then it isn't...not after seeing Holtzclaw cry for himself when the verdict was read.
I think I'll cry, instead, for the 13 black women who KNEW (just like Holtzclaw did) that they were considered **nothings** therefore nobody would investigate their accusations even if they made them, even if they were bruised and bleeding.
It's just luck, you know? It's just luck that Holtzclaw finally attacked a middle class black woman who was not from the poor/powerless neighborhood he was used to hunting in. She is the only reason he's in jail
This makes Holtzclaw case, even if he gets a life sentence, a whole lot less than justice gone right.
All in all, I don't think this desire to see Holtzclaw suffer makes me a hypocrite. I hate the death penalty too but was damn glad to hear Jeffrey Dahmler was dead and that the state executed Ted Bundy too. I think these contradictions, the space between my intellectual reaction and my emotional one, make me a human.
And this human thinks that she is entitled to be damn angry as long as she feels like being angry...until the decision to forgive, for my own sake, flows to me.
* * * * *
I think what irked me about his article was who wrote it and when more than the content
I just sooo do not care what heterosexual men, even well meaning ones, think about my level of anger. I'm not listening to any man who has likely never lived daily with curtailing their own movements (not walking alone after dark etc) so they won't be raped.
I care about what men think of my anger at rapists as much as we (black folk) care about what white people think of our anger at racists.
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