YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THAT SITUATION: Nate Parker's Response Before His Rape Trial

PROBABLY
GONNA HAVE TA

BOYCOTT

NATE PARKER'S
BIRTH OF A NATION

BECAUSE

WE'VE GOT OUR A BROCK TURNER IN OUR MIDST AND....


BLACK WOMEN MATTER TOO

Warning: If you've ever been sexually assaulted, you probably don't need to read this

On August 12, 2016, it came out that "Birth of Nation" producer  Nate Parker and movie co-writer Jean Celestin were college athletes and two of three(?) men accused of raping an unconscious young woman from hailing from Haiti while attending Jerry Sandusky's Penn State.

The accuser admits to flirting the Parker and wanting to spend time with Parker and to having oral sex with him. But she didn't agree to let him share her with his buddies once she was unconscious. This is why Parker wound up on trial for rape along with fellow wrestler Celestin.

Unlike Cosby's accusers, Parker's accuser got intoxicated on her own. She admits that.  But, Parker's own words damn him. Another man in the room that night damn Parker and Celestin as well.


* * * * *

" At trial, the woman testified she was intoxicated, unconscious through much of the encounter and upset to find she had experienced unwanted sex with Parker — though she acknowledged having willingly engaged in oral sex with him during an encounter the day before. More, she said she was shocked on becoming briefly conscious to find in her mouth the penis of another man, who was later identified as Celestin.

... The police later monitored a second call during which both Parker and Celestin generally admitted the sexual encounter but insisted it was consensual.

“I’m not try, trying to be mean, but, I felt like you put yourself in that situation, you know what I mean?” said Parker. “I really felt like I didn’t do anything wrong.” "

~ Deadline.com

http://deadline.com/2016/08/nate-parker-sex-case-the-birth-of-a-nation-oscar-race-fox-searchlight-1201799115/

I can understand why a jury wouldn't have convicted Parker. I might not have either if the standard was "beyond a resonable doubt." But the other things he did should have put him in jail and I don't think that just because Parker's words instantly reminded me of the Steubenville Rape Case. 

In Steubenville in 2012 there were two high school athletes, one of them black, in a football crazy town that were videotaped moving a completely unconscious girl from one room to another for the purpose of raping her. It was established that they had sex with her while she was unconscious. There was even a laughing moron in the foreground of one of the videos who says "She is so raped" But the young men on trial and tons of men and women watching that trial in Steubenville Ohio and elsewhere that claimed not to understand the concept of "consent"  Mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors, and fans said she was not raped.  

This rape happened to a young white "girl." And it sounds like less than half the "boys" that actually raped her were ever indicted thanks to a rape culture friendly cop.  

Don't you wonder how she must have felt when everybody around her, the people she thought  valued her as a member of her community,  tell her in so many words that she was nothing to them but a speed bump in the road for their sports heroes future professional football careers? 

I've always thought that the young man laughing at this girl about "She is so raped" is one of the main reasons the claims of not understanding consent failed. The boys,  rapists and witnesses alike, put their  knowledge that what happened was "rape"  by using "rape" to describe the event all over the place via social media. But laughing boy sealed the deal. He made it obvious that the rapists (tried and untried) and all the witnesses understood that girl was raped.

Again, only two of the actual rapists were ever put on trial, and they were tried as juveniles. These "boys" got sentenced to 1 or 2 years, which means they served half that and are out already. The rape victim's therapy won't be over for 10 times that amount of time. And the hacktavist that exposed the football team's complicity in the rape in the first place was still in legal trouble last I checked. 

The black rapist, even after seeing video of himself carrying the girl and admitting he had sex with her while she was unconscious, at first he said "I didn't do anything wrong" It wasn't until conviction that I finally saw Ma'lik R. be appropriately repentant. (Frankly, I hope his parents realize they let their son down not teaching him against "boys will be boys." But there are news outlets (Slate,      )that think life is being too tough on the "boys" -- despite their ridiculously short sentences.) 

Many of the Steubenville Rapist Defenders seem to have the same attitude as Parker.  If some people could have found the girl that those boys were carrying around unconscious, they'd have told her to her face, 

"You put yourself in that position" 

That is the mantra of rape culture aficionados everywhere. An unconscious woman is fair game.  And a woman that is clearly sexually attracted to someone, any ONE person and then gets drunk? She's automatically "a whore" that shouldn't have put herself in that position if she has two drinks much less a bunch of them.

Parker's accuser doesn't remember that much. But it is implied that she does remember that she did not agree to "have a train run on her."

Transcript:  https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/accuserexcerpt-wm.pdf

However, one of the men there the night of the alleged rape remembered plenty, which is why Parker's co-producer Jean Celestin was convicted of rape.

At trial, a third man, Tamerlane Kangas, testified that Parker waved him and Celestin to join him when they spied Parker and the woman having sex in the bedroom. While Celestin accepted the invitation, Kangas declined, and left the apartment. He was not charged with any crime. “I didn’t believe that four people at one time was — you know, it didn’t seem right,” he testified.

The rape survivor was clearly attracted to Parker. Again, I can see where the court would be unclear about Parker being a rapist, solely for putting his penis inside her when she had  performed oral sex on him recently.  I think that's rape.  I believe he raped her. But I can see why THE COURT is unclear on THAT POINT.  But I don't see why he wouldn't have been tried for being a facilitator of rape. He was having sex with her after she'd said yes to oral sex and no to penetration earlier or the previous day. But then He invited other men into the room while she was passed out.  He orchestrated the rape if Kangas is telling the truth.

Despite Celestin's rape conviction, a judge arranged it so Celestin could graduate on time. Celestin's light conviction was overturned at appeal because the victim didn't want to testify again. (For a six month sentence, who would testify the first time if they knew that was all that was in the offing?)

The victim reportedly dropped out of school and attempted suicide at least once (see main deadline article). 

For those so deep into rape culture that they can't see it, please know that it is the rare woman that puts themselves through a rape accusation for the hell of it. The statistics bear this out. And I've got to believe that black women do it even less frequently.

Black women knew way before the Bill Cosby Case that most black men and half of black women (non-feminists) will turn on a black woman in a heart beat if she accuses a successful black man of anything -- even rape. And in college, the equivalent of the untouchable, rich successful black man is the potentially rich successful black man, the athlete. I don't know if athletes were involved or not but the brave young woman identified as  "Raped@Spelman" wasn't even protected by her school at Spelman, a HBCU for black women.

I believe this Haitian woman's accusation. I even halfway believe the co-conspirator(?) who probably cut himself a deal. Furthermore, I see Parker's weak defense of himself as smoke indicating there's a rape fire in his past right the where court documents appear to indicate there is. 

Besides, we should all know by now that this happening at Penn State is significant because Penn State has a certain reputation for protecting anything anybody connected with its sports programs. 

Just a few years after Penn State agreed to review its policies regarding sexual assault in an agreement with Celestin's victim, it would come under fire again when it became clear that a number of coaches  --the mostly white male heroes of the school-- knew that Jerry Sandusky was raping young boys while running some program at the school.  

Apparently, all more than 15 men kept quiet about Sandusky raping young boys to keep the college's sports record on track. 

So there's not a doubt in my mind that this accusation against Parker and Celestin is not just possible, but likely.

By gdcgraphics [CC BY-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Again, Parker's response has been weak at best. He's talking about his youth, how he's grown.  He even brought his 6 year old daughter to do an interview about the rape case then said he wouldn't discuss details of his case 

It is more than a little bit ironic that his movie "Birth Of A Nation," which I have been looking forward to so long, starts off with a black man trying to avenge his wife's rape.

I hope somebody finds more information. I want to be wrong about this so very badly   --not as badly as I wanted to be wrong about Cosby, but almost. 

I'm not that big a fan of Parker's, though I thought he was so handsome--- up until a few hours ago. But I really wanted his movie to overwrite the other movie by the same name that did so much damage to black people (It initially spread the KKK's message) and also overwrite the Pulitzer Prize winning book written by a white man that made Nat Turner and his men look like clumsy, stumbling children.

I'm so disgusted with Nate Parker and his pack that I'm sick to my stomach.  
I wonder if any famous black man or famous black woman anywhere is going to stand up and say, "Hell No!" to supporting his movie. I'll bet most of the black women know better -- even Oprah, Shonda, and Ava probably know they'd be ripped to shreds. Any black woman who was watching how black female victims of Bill Cosby and Ray Rice and R. Kelly and even Chris Brown knows she'll be cyber kicked to death if she raises a voice against the successful or even potentially successful black man

I'm sick to death 

of the black community 

treating black women 

the way the white community 

treats the black community. 

I'm sick to death of seeing these parallels over and over.


Don't you wonder how we live with feeling like every black body around us, the people we thought  valued us as members of our own community tell us, in so many words, that we are nothing to them but speed bumps stamped "whore" on the road of life leading to black men's future professional football careers, television careers, music careers, and movie careers?


Anybody who still isn't sure that Nate and his pals deserved long term jail sentences, read Kangas testimony, one of the men that was there during the "alleged" rape.

- https://issuu.com/pmcderek/docs/kangas_testimony/2