All three of these cases have made me realize just how little a woman's life is worth. Actually, the signals that a black woman's life is worth little or nothing are constant. The thing that scared me this week is how little a white woman's life is worth in a society that so highly values whiteness.
However, a white woman's life being worth almost nothing almost makes sense of everything that happened to black women in California courts last week.
6 MONTH SENTENCE FOR BROCK TURNER,
CALIFORNIA, JUNE 2016
The thing I keep thinking about is how safe white society in Brock Turner's neighborhood and at Brock Turner's former school, Stanford, must have felt around somebody that looks like a perfectly safe white boy.
Women probably felt safe around Dan Turner, Brock Turner's father too -- until he called a rape "20 minutes of action." And now I wonder how the women in his neighborhood are going to feel with him around at the next neighborhood barbecue -- especially if he has more than one beer.
The thing I keep thinking about is how safe white society in Brock Turner's neighborhood and at Brock Turner's former school, Stanford, must have felt around somebody that looks like a perfectly safe white boy.
Women probably felt safe around Dan Turner, Brock Turner's father too -- until he called a rape "20 minutes of action." And now I wonder how the women in his neighborhood are going to feel with him around at the next neighborhood barbecue -- especially if he has more than one beer.
A neighborhood full of white middle class people like Brock and Daddy Turner is supposed to be safe. But those two are about as safe as the Jello Pudding Man (who should be on trial for sexual assault fairly soon.)
What some of us don't understand about status and social standing could fill up two football stadiums,myself included. But we should all try to understand this, especially now that we've seen this movie than once:
A woman's social value in this society is pretty close to zero. And that's especially true if you're a black woman.
But things can shift suddenly. The Anita Hill trial laid bare the most condescending sexism I've ever seen on television, in Washington D.C. among our white male leaders. And the following election season wome flocked to the polls and put a Carolyn Mosley Braun and a number of white women in elected office.
The Anita Hill case is probably the last, most important event in getting Hillary Clinton into the office of President. And Hillary Clinton being president will be the last, most important event in getting a black woman to be president one day.
But we've still got a long way to go, especially if white women, with a status much higher than black and brown women, are being treated like they are garbage.
A lot of black people don't believe it, but sexism is as strong or stronger than racism. That's one of the reasons Barack Obama is president right now. Hillary had a lot of baggage last presidential election and this one too. But if Elizabeth Warren had come onto the scene a few years earlier and ran against Barack Obama, I'm almost certain she'd have lost too.
The absence of a penis is absence of social status, lack of trust of 75% of society (not just men).
When you look at rape cases though, another factor is added. Married women are somewhat automatically shielded from slut-shaming So I hope we're understanding what we are seeing when we look at the slap on the wrist Brock Turner received for rape.
A white woman without a white husband
to transfer some of his status to her
is nothing compared to a white man.
Absolutely nothing.
That's what that 6 month sentence, probably 3 months with good behavior should be communicating to everybody.
I haven't read one thing about the race or ethnicity of the woman Brock Turner raped. And that almost always translates to "white" in the mainstream news. But news outlets know her ethnicity and they would have found a way to let us know - "not white."
Imagine how all levels of shock over Turner's lenient sentence would evaporate if the woman he raped turned out to black or brown.
The other decision made in California courts this week made Jasmine Turner the first Black American convicted of lynching.
The white male police department of Pasadena did backflips and double somersaults when they felt like one or two of their own was offended by Black Lives Matter Activist Jasimne "Abdullah" Richards. Apparently, Richards tried to stop the police from arresting another person at a Black Lives Matter event. However, she didn't hit them or get violent enough for them to shoot her or arrest her for assault so, the Pasadena police, prosecutor, judge --one of them or all three -- found a law that covers taking a prisoner from police custody, a 1933 felony lynch law.
Of course the 1933 law was supposed to be about a bunch of white men storming the jail house, beating up officers or threatening them, then taking a black prisoner out to nearest tree to be hung and burned -- but Pasadena got creative and used it on a Black Lives Matter Activist trying to protest what she perceived to be an ill conceived arrest Jasmine Richards wound up getting a 90 day sentence and probation. But for months, she thought she might go to jail for 4 years. COMPARE: The California police located a little further north, near Stanford, did not do 1/10th the legal maneuvering to get their claws into Brock Turner.
They didn't try to arrest white male Brock Turner for straight assault for each one of the woman's bruises or for kidnapping (for taking her to a new location, behind the dumpster) and then pile a rape charge on top of all of it.
All of these charges would have made just as much sense as charging Jasmine Richards for lynching. California justice could have put him in jail for 25 years .... if the white victim mattered nearly as much as the butt hurt feelings of victimization that must have been experienced by the Pasadena Police Officers, offended by the audacity of a Black Lives Matter Activist getting in their face about a questionable arrest.
The white woman (victim) that was raped by Brock Turner is nothing compared to the white police officers (victims) that were verbally assaulted (?) by Jasmine Richards.
Get it in your head
The white woman is worth nothing
compared to the white man.
Nothing.
And a lot of non-feminist white women
aren't going to figure it out
until they get divorced.
Black women are worth even less.
If only it were true though. If only it were true that black men are picked up a lot faster for rape then white men.
The Grim Sleeper (Lonnie Franklin Jr) case proves this is not even close to true.
DEATH PENALTY FOR LONNIE FRANKLIN JR
CALIFORNIA, 2016
(for the last-ish 10 black women killed)
The Grim Sleeper, Lonnie Franklin Jr., a black man killing black women in his own neighborhood for over 20 years was given a death sentence for killing black women that he raped and very likely tortured first.
This is barely getting any play in black social media circles because it looks like justice has been done. But many people seem to have forgotten Franklin did not get any jail time at all
for the first 1 black woman,
or the first 10 black women,
or first 100 black women
he likely killed.
So we need a revised heading for this section,yes?
Here it is:
ZERO SENTENCE FOR LONNIE FRANKLIN JR
CALIFORNIA, 1990s to 2016
(for the first 100 ( ? ) black women killed)
Watch "Tales Of The Grim Sleeper" on HBO or youtube if you can find it. You won't be able to believe the lack of concern for the women that went missing. You will also come away understanding just how far "slut shaming" can go and how deadly it can be for us.In the Stanford Rape case, the powers that be tried to slut shame the victim into being worthless, as is usual in rape cases. In the Grim Sleeper Case, the police and the people of the neighborhood so successfully slut-shamed the black women living there that they didn't even bother to seriously look for the women being disappeared by Franklin. That's how you get away with being a serial killer in your own neighborhood for 20 years -- when people hear sometimes hear screams of torture and pain coming from the trailer in the backyard from time to time.
Black women aren't worth
any more to black men
than
white women are to white men.
I've read articles on how the Brock Turner case is about where rape culture meets white privilege, and the sentencing most definitely is. But it's not like the sexism is so low in the black community that a black judge wouldn't have done the VERY SAME THING for a black male college student.
Look at how far some black men (and the idiotic women that follow them blindly) went to defend Bill Cosby.
I'm sorry, but a black male rapist with Olympic potential would have had black people (not just black men) throwing a black female rape victim under the bus just as fast or faster than these white people did with Brock Turner's victim.
OUTSIDE OF CALIFORNIA AT A COUPLE OF HBCU's
I'm sorry, but a black male rapist with Olympic potential would have had black people (not just black men) throwing a black female rape victim under the bus just as fast or faster than these white people did with Brock Turner's victim.
The women at Spelman are complaining about being raped by men at Morehouse right now. What's worse is that the women at Spelman are complaining about being treated like race traitors for calling out black men for raping them.
Black men aren't any better about taking care of the business of stopping rape culture than white men are. Believe this.
Actually, the ultimate proof that white men don't care about white women that aren't their direct responsibility (wives and daughters) has already been presented in Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby was making white men money, big money. Any white woman who could be successfully slut-shamed from the 1960s on wasn't worth spit. And in the 1960s? 1970s? It didn't take much to tramp stamp a woman. Bill Cosby figured out 40 years ago if he makes tons of green for white men he gets to be treated as an honorary white man. And Cosby was so happy with his honorary white man role, he stepped to the black community with the cornbread speech -- before we found out he's a rapist. As of today, maybe half to 3/4 of the black population still isn't letting the story of Bill Cosby fully sink into the brain and heart
And at the risk of being redundant, even during the days right after slavery up through the Civil Rights Movement, black men being accused of rape of white women weren't REALLY being accused of the rape at all.
White male run newspapers made lynching about rape to cover up what was really going on.
Ida B Wells found out in the late 1800s and early 1900s that the white woman didn't even exist 2/3rds of the time when rape accusations were made against black men in the news. White men were lynching black men for their property or money or for fun (get that uppity n*gger). The rape story in the newspapers was strictly a cover two-thirds of the time, an excuse for viciousness and greed.
The white, post Civil War South needed money from the North and from England for the cotton they were still growing. White men of the south couldn't afford to look like vicious lowlifes due to lynching. Enter stage left - stories of defending white women's honor from rape by black heathens.
HISTORY LESSON: Green dollars mean more than anything to a lot of people, and to a lot of white men too. Green dollars even mean more to white men than white women.
CURRENT LESSON: Green dollars mean more than anything to a lot of people, and to a lot of white men too. Green dollars even mean more to white men than white women.
That 6 month jail sentence says that Brock Turner, as a white man, is worth 10 of the woman he raped. Again, I assume she's white. If she's not, my shock level at his getting 6 months, 3 months with good behavior will evaporate.
The thing that kinda pushed my attitude off the final cliff was hearing that Brock is in a special section of the jail so he doesn't get to experience "20 minutes of action" for himself, daily.
The California justice system has been hellish on women this week. I really do not think a court system in any state in the south could have done a more thorough job of telling all women they are nothing as compared to white men.
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