Showing posts with label rape culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rape culture. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

MALE MARINES UNITED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEMSELVES ONLY

MARINES UNITED was the name of a facebook page that male marines used to prove they have no honor and that they only only respect and protect other male marines, leaving female marines to fend for themselves.

"Marines United" was the name of a now-defunct men only facebook page where United States Marines shared nude photos of women without the women's consent. Apparently the photos were hacked from various places the individual women owned or boyfriends own.There were also nude and suggestive photos of the men's ex-girlfriends that were shared in a revenge porn sort of way. 




I am not surprised, not with judges so worried about a rapist's future that he sends him to six months after he shoved a foreign object into his victim that it left dirt behind. This latest military sexual harassment scandal is just the top of a very large iceberg


Last week I was listening to a public radio broadcast where a woman said that a tag that male marines used to identify female marines is "WM" which stands for "walking mattresses." That doesn't sound like much. But it says volumes about the men in marines and how women are seen in general. Furthermore, it's not like the marines have had problems over and over again with sexual harassment and sexual assault.

PFC LaVena Johnson was in the army but their reputation isn't much better. Johnson's body was sent home in 2005 after she reportedly committed suicide with a very long rifle considering the small frame she had to go along with her 5 foot 1 inch height. Suspicious, her pathologist father examined her body when it returned home only to find that the body had gloves glued on to cover severe burns-- that nobody could explain at the time. It took a FOIA request and a lot of time to Army to come up with a story that explained the burns -- but never the abuses her body seemed to have suffered.  A number of reporters who saw the second autopsy thought it was possible that Johnson was raped and murdered.

"Johnson's death was officially ruled a suicide by the Department of Defense.[3] However, her father became suspicious when he saw her body in the funeral home and decided to investigate. The Army initially refused to release information, but did so under the Freedom of Information Act after Representative William Lacy Clay, Jr. raised questions about it at the congressional hearings over Pat Tillman's death.[4]
The autopsy report and photographs revealed Johnson had a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, burns from a corrosive chemical on her genitals, and a gunshot wound that seemed inconsistent with suicide. Several reporters have suspected that the chemical burns were to destroy DNA evidence of a rape.[2][4][5][6]
...Christopher Grey, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Criminal Investigative Command for the Army has said that the case remains closed as far as they are concerned.[7] "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_LaVena_Johnson

http://thesource.com/2014/01/21/justice-for-lavena-johnson-raped-murdered-or-suicide-the-evidence-says-one-thing-u-s-military-says-another/


Not so long agao, during the last years of the Iraq War, a friend of mine told me that she came across a man who worked at a nearby Veteran's Hospital. They got to chatting while riding the bus. He told her that the news covered the dead but barely mentioned those physically maimed, mentally scarred for life, and dozens and dozens of female rape victims  -- not raped by the enemy but raped by their fellow United States Serviceman. 


So no, this latest sexual harassment accusation against thousands of male marines that were members of that MARINES UNITED facebook page is not a surprise to me


Last weekend, news broke that the Marines were investigating a stomach-churning violation of trust in the ranks: personnel were found to have shared [nude and suggestive] photos and personal information of female Marines and veterans, without their consent ― in a Facebook group with over 30,000 members. The photos have garnered 2,500 comments and ratings in what amounts to a breathtaking demonstration of entitlement, exercised in this case via technology. For a month, hundreds and possibly thousands of pictures of female service women have been posted and commented on. The comments are specific and contain details about residence, rank, and contact information. Some comments included encouragement of specific acts of violence against specific women. The private Facebook group is limited to male Marines, Navy Corpsman and British Royal Marines, according to Thomas Brennan, a Marine veteran and journalist who first reported on the photo-sharing scandal.
Against a backdrop of persistently high rates of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military, these postings indicate that the policies of zero tolerance have failed to be applied or enforced. There are no current consequences sufficient to deter harassment and misconduct within the armed forces.

These accusations are just the latest proof that military men in power have found a myriad ways to protect rapists and men that violate women by refusing to impose consequences on those that commit "boys will be boys" type offenses. Every time a woman complains, each men in charge must think that's just natural behavior she's experiencing. Every time a woman is raped, it's an abberation instead of a natural consequence of the behavior the military refuses to stop normalizing.

Inside the military and out, we need to come up with a new criminal charge for revenge porn and sneaking nude pictures to post online. Something like "non-physical sexual assault" ought to do it. 




Friday, October 14, 2016

DONALD TRUMP IS GIVING US A MASTER CLASS ON WHY WOMEN DON'T REPORT SEXUAL ASSAULT


I am finally understanding, in detail, just how Anita Hill must have felt watching Clarence Thomas move toward a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court after having kept his sexual harassment of her a secret for years in order to save her own job, to save her own reputation.

When I was younger, I may have been intolerant about her going to work for Thomas a second time despite the sexual harassment. But now that I've watched the Donald Trump Sexual Harassment Scandal unfold, I understand.



Back in the 1980s and 1990s, sexual harassment had to have been nearly ever present, compared to now -- especially if you were working for a powerful white man or a man who aspired to be a powerful white man in Washington D.C.

In the 1980s and 1990s there was still this attitude that a woman should prove her ability to do "a man's job" by being able to take whatever was being dished out in the workplace --even though men never suffered the indignity of sexual harassment.

In fact, being a woman working in Washington D.C. had have been a lot like working as a beauty pageant contestant or a model in one very specific way:  Working for one man was probably just like working for another man --unless you were extremely lucky. The intensity of the sexual harassment is probably what varied from job to job to job.

Hill deciding to work for Clarence Thomas a second time was probably a decision to work for the devil you know rather than the devil you don't know.

And while I always believed Anita Hill over Clarence Thomas, I'm a little ashamed I didn't really understand how limited her choices were until just now.

Likewise, the women Donald Trump has harassed didn't come forward until he claimed on national television that he didn't put his hands on women and kiss them just as he bragged about in that 2005 video.

Some of these women heard Trump lie and say he didn't sexually harass women. And some or all of his accusers probably said to themselves. "You liar! You did it to me."

So now we know he walked in on half dressed and naked teenagers as owner of the Miss Universe Pageant.

And nobody's mother or father knocked him out. Too powerful?  

Rolling Stone Magazine has put together a timeline of his sexual harassment as the owner of Miss Universe Pageant, which includes his walking into dressing rooms while girls and women are not dressed. Yet this powerful(?) magazine is too scared to put the words "sexual harassment" in the title of their article.  Rolling Stone called what he did "creepiness" instead.

A Timeline of Donald Trump's Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/timeline-of-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-w444634 This, in addition to how college rapists are just walking away, ought to tell you how small and insignificant sexual assault on women is.

Sexual Assault is so insignificant to men with power that Nate Parker and Fox Searchlight didn't bother to find out what happened to Nate Parker's victim despite (1) Jean Celestin, co-rapist and co-writer of Birth Of A Nation actually being convicted of rape and (2) the victim's suicide attempts during the trial.

Nate Parker and the studio tried to drop the story late on a Friday in a way sympathetic to Parker, like Parker was the victim. And his studio didn't even bother to find out what happened to the woman who testified at a successful conviction of his co-conspirator -despite her suicide attempts at the time?

We should all know what Nate Parker is by now. He said he didn't think of the woman again.  But the studio had to know that Jean Celestin's conviction was overturned after enough money was thrown at the legal system by way of purchasing a more expensive lawyer.  There's no way the studio or the public relations team didn't know Parker's legal troubles on this point were serious.

And it didn't occur to anyone at Fox Searchlight or Parker to check to see what happened to the woman that made the accusation?

I know women who were sexually assaulted and/or raped who can't really talk about it 30 years later.  But a lot of men don't know or don't care about this. That must be why people kept asking about why Parker didn't apologize instead of why Parker didn't go to jail for 15 to 20 years. 


If sexual assault is this insignificant to the men that rule the United States (rule the world), then a woman can't report it without preparing for major blow back. 


And that blow black, that punishment, a woman will get for daring to accuse a man of something insignificant in male minds but potentially career wrecking for a man on paper,  that woman's punishment will be a heck of a lot more significant than the harasser's punishment -- if she cannot conclusively prove the harassment.  

That's why Anita Hill and the women accusing Trump didn't come forward until they felt something important was at stake like a Supreme Court seat and a Presidency. And though Anita Hill "lost" in white male dominated courtroom and Clarence Thomas was confirmed, Anita Hill changed our world.

That's why I'm ashamed I kinda didn't realize Anita Hill's career was as vulnerable to male oppressors as women whose job it is to have their beauty and more specifically their breasts to waist and waist to butt ratios visually measured and compared to other women  -- not until just now.

THE ANITA HILL EFFECT WE'RE LIVING IN RIGHT NOW




* * * * * * * * * * * *

Not only does Donald Trump know how rape culture operates, he uses his money and his power to take advantage of it. 


In the past 24 hours, we’ve witnessed a master class in the way powerful men get away with assault, harassment, and abuse of their power. During his first speech since his his accusers went public, Trump told a crowd of his supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach that he was in fact the victim and one by one called all of the women liars. In a speech that was both painful and at times sickening to listen to, Trump proved exactly why women often avoid reporting assault: the very present fear that they will be publicly shamed — especially when it comes to Trump accusers — for doing so.

Read More: http://www.vox.com/2016/10/13/13274972/donald-trump-is-giving-us-a-master-class-in-why-womendontreport



THE W0MEN ACCUSING  TRUMP 


 Ivana Trump,  1989

CONNECTION TO TRUMP: Wife from 1977 to 1992

ALLEGATION:  Rape....until he started running for president. Judge for yourself. Read the details taken from an Ivana Trump interview here.  (I can't believe this hasn't gotten more air time during mainstream news cycle).
Read More:http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/05/ivana-trump-called-donald-trump-rapist.html


Jessica Leeds, 1980s
Jill Harth, 1992
CONNECTION TO TRUMP: Business partner
ALLEGATION: The New York Times first published a legal complaint detailing Harth's account in May, but Harth elaborated in an interview with the Times' Nicholas Kristof in October. She said that at dinner one night, Trump put his hands up her skirt, touching her crotch. "He was relentless ... I didn't know how to handle it. I would go away from him and say I have to go to the restroom. It was the escape route," she told Kristof. "He name-dropped continuously," she added in a later lawsuit, "when he wasn't groping me."


Temple Taggart, 1997
Mindy McGillivray, 2003
Rachel Crooks,  2005
Natasha Stoynoff, December 2005
CONNECTION TO TRUMP: Was a People magazine writer covering Trump in 2005
ALLEGATION: Stoynoff writes in a piece posted Wednesday night about a 2005 trip she took to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump and his wife, Melania. During a break, Trump offered to show her around, saying there was one room in particular he wanted her to see. Stoynoff's account describes what happened next as an "attack":
  • "We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat. ... I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump's longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself."

Cassandra Searles,  2013

 * * * * *
DONALD TRUMP HAS SPOKEN ABOUT HIS RIGHT TO GO ANYWHERE, ANYTIME HE WANTS AS MISS UNIVERSE/MISS USA PAGEANT OWNER --which must be why he walked in on naked teenage girls in their dressing room. 


  • "He just came strolling right in," Dixon said. "There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis."
TRUMP INTERVIEW, JUSTIFYING HIS BEHAVIOR (advertisement first)


Another link to the video  
http://video.rollingstone.com/previews/0BJI1xVV-necgKPaX
updated  10 14 16

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

ARTICLE CLAIMS PETTY BLACK FEMINISTS UNDERMINED NATE PARKER MOVIE DUE TO WHITE WIFE


Top: A defiant Nate Parker
Bottom: Billy Bush and Donald Trump asking for hugs have talking about grabbing p*ssy

THE FACTS
This past weekend Nate Parker's movie "Birth Of A Nation" semi-tanked as did Donald Trump's presidential bid (we hope). Both are in trouble due to their misogynistic attitudes towards women. Both are claiming they didn't sexually assault anyone more than a decade back.

How Badly Did “The Birth Of A Nation” Actually Do At The Box Office?





Parker and Trump have both proven that sometimes the sexism and misogyny one harbors inside can get so big you can't help but let it out.  Parker even went so far as to shoot himself in the foot one last time on 60 minutes just before the movie came out.

Parker and Trump aren't just having a hard time understanding that male privilege and white privilege, respectively, are crumbling. They don't even seem to recognize women as fully human.



THE ACCUSATION

Birth of A Nation’s Box Office Flop and The Unrepentant Pettiness of Black Feminists.





"...Anyhow, let’s rewind time back to when this drama kicked off…
I remember in early August of this year, scrolling down my Facebook feed and seeing many clickbait style viral articles about Nate Parker having a white wife from black catered gossip bloggers and sites."
After the rant on how she believes every stereotype there is regarding black feminism she goes onto talk about how black women hated Parker and his movie because he has a white wife.
This author even admits she is NOT claiming what Parker did is rape. Apparently she thinks black women are supposed to rally around him and his project anyway.



https://medium.com/@inthe9thhouse/birth-of-a-nations-box-office-flop-and-the-unrepentant-pettiness-of-black-feminists-9f3f598819aa#.4sdi6drez


MY RESPONSE TO THE ACCUSATION:


"12 Years A Slave" Director
Steve McQueen and wife
1) We knew Nate's wife was white a year before the film came out -- same as 70% of black male wives, girlfriends are light or white.

That
pattern irritates some women. But it's still no biggie. This hasn't stopped black women, including feminists, from supporting a black male projects in 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, or now.


2) Black women hate rape because we gots-da integrity like dat.



3) YES! WE DID IT!!!! Bwaaaaaa ha ha ha.




NATE PARKER PUT HIMSELF IN THIS SITUATION



And by the way, when a black man (Tamerlane Kangas) says you (Nate Parker) invited him and Jean Celestin to have sex with your unconscious date THAT'S RAPE all by itself -- just like me hiring a hitman to kill grandma would make me a murderer if I wasn't even there for the shooting.


YES WE DID IT!

And though the race of the woman barely makes a difference to me and many others, you can bet your black @$$ that this mofos all over the country have raped black women for decades using the same "You put yourself in that position" excuse. Parker's own friend said Nate told him "We ran a train on ______"  which has always been code for gang rape that doesn't count as 'gang rape' because the rapists involved, as well as the rape enablers that came along afterward, claim the woman was a drunk ho anyway. (I remember college guys using these excuses to my face.)

SOOO...YES WE DID IT!

And I'm sooo proud


*********************

Just because some women's fathers brothers,and uncles etc --especially those that were frat boys -- got away with pulling this crap on women when they were in college that doesn't make the invitation to have sex with an unconscious woman anything less than rape.


May this be a signal to black college guys everywhere. White boys like Brock Turner may continue to get away with it. But we are cleaning up the black community. That B.S. is over.



signed




P.S. Maybe the author needs to take a class on black female patriarchy

Monday, October 10, 2016

WHAT MOST MEN DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT DONALD TRUMPS WORDS ON SEXUAL ASSAULT

Feeling Rebloggy
"It’s painful to watch not just because Zucker doesn’t know what was said about her, but because this is what women are afraid of. That the men we know, the men we work with – or even love – say horrible things about us. That despite assurances that they respect us and consider us equals, men are secretly winking behind our back. That we are not really people to them, [just an arrangement of tits and @$$ in a certain ratio]"




And what Trump does here is validate those assumptions, that whoever Zucker actually is is not even a relevant consideration to them.

When women watch that interaction between Trump, Bush and Zucker, they’ll think of the countless times they walked up to a group of jovial men in mid-conversation and felt something in the pit of their stomach. They’ll wonder if their sneaking suspicion was right all along – that they were on the outside, that they were the joke.

~Daily KOS



Read More: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/09/1579595/-The-Most-Disturbing-Aspect-Of-The-Trump-Video-Is-One-That-Most-Men-Won-t-Appreciate?

*  *  *  *  *

And one actress has actually had a man sexually assault her by grabbing her by the p*ssy as Donald suggests.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amber-tamblyn-sexual-abuse-trump_us_57fa9b75e4b0b6a430332f80?




Sunday, October 9, 2016

GABRIELLE UNION AS NATE PARKER'S KEVLAR VEST

"Nate Parker, however, seems to want to somehow un-save himself. Despite countless attempts to help him remove his own foot from his own mouth — and even actually successfully doing it for lack a week — he seems hellbent on placing it back in there and keeping it there for perpetuity. Like he likes the taste of size 12 Timberland and can’t get enough of it....
Below is a small list of people who have either allowed Nate to explain himself ....
1. Fans of Nate Parker
2. Classmates of Nate Parker at Penn State
3. People who’ve seen Birth of a Nation and believe it’s an important movie that needs to be seen
4. People who haven’t yet seen Birth of a Nation, but wish to and recognize that it’s an important movie that needs to be seen
5. The homie Britni Danielle at EBONY6. Jesse Williams, in a way
7. Fox Searchlight
8. Gabrielle Union, who, by sharing her poignant and powerful words about her own experience with sexual assault, has practically made herself Nate Parker’s kevlar vest
http://verysmartbrothas.com/support-birth-of-a-nation-or-not-but-just-know-that-nate-parker-is-probably-peak-fuckboy/


 * * * * *

from September 2016

Of course they asked Gabrielle Union for her opinion on her co-stars rape trial. Of course, people wanted to know. I wanted to know, especially since she identifies herself as a feminist.

But I was very disappointed. I didn't like Unions answer. I thought it weak and more than a little cowardly despite the fact that I'm not sure I could have done that much better.As thoroughly disgusted as I've been with Nate Parker, I'm still trying to put myself in Unions's place.


I'm trying to imagine what it's like to have known some for a year or more, have them be pleasant to you wind up thinking he's a good guy or a good enough guy --average in his sexism like most men--- before finding out about a rape trial. 
Then you read about your co-worker in court documents and think...what? What do you think?  No matter how you read the court documents or what you think the legal definition of rape should be,what he did was reprehensible. 
And then he says he never thought about what he did to that woman again? How does a Christian repent if he doesn't think about how he's harmed other people? How does that work exactly?  What church is he going to? The church of me, myself, and I? The church of ONLY BLACK MEN MATTER?
How does a rape survivor wrap her mind around this and say a thing that's even half way like a defense? I don't get it.

Maybe if I knew him personally, like Union does,  I wouldn't have so instantly drawn the conclusion that inviting other men to rape your unconscious date makes you a rapist yourself.

Maybe.

Maybe Union has an excuse for essentially saying, "Well...we don't know what happened. We weren't there." Maybe she was stuck having to protect the movie she's attached to for professional reasons. Or maybe she's just not that bright.

I still remember how long it took for Phylicia Rashad to reluctantly some forward to defend Bill Cosby when he's probably responsible for 80% of her current wealth. She doubled back with a quickness when people came for her head. But I could tell she didn't want to say anything the first time.

It can't be easy to look at a black man, respect him personally, and respect his work, then find out he is foulness itself. Black women are conditioned from birth to think black men have it harder than black women, conditioned to coddle them too. Regardless of all that maybe a loyal person's mind can't move that distance from friend to foul but so quickly.  

Still, I'd like to think I could jump that hurdle of calling myself "judgmental" and/or "petty"to try to make a new estimation of my friend, acquaintance, or co-worker if I saw evidence that made me pretty sure he's a rapist.

I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't look at Union's defense of Parker too hard.

Maybe...

Unlike Union, I suppose, I saw problems with Parker before I heard the rape accusations.

http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/02/nate-parker-chris-rock-and-fourth-wave.html

But this problem of black men seeing black men as the only black people with white racism problems is hardly unique to Nate Parker and his defenders.

That's why I wonder if, for black actresses, working with a lot of black men is just like working with white people. 




As a black person, you wear the mask and ignore white racism while you're at the white dominated office. Maybe a black woman wears a different mask and ignores the black sexism while at the black male dominated movie set.


I guess I'll never know.

 But I  actually recoiled when Union said she plays a rape victim who doesn't speak in  The Birth Of A Nation.

Now, no two feminists have to be alike. But she allowed herself to be used as a piece of background that motivates the real hero of the story? And she's not playing the usual black-female-background to the real story either --wife or mother who pats the black male hero on the back and says "go get em" then is never seen again. No, Union is playing a raped piece of background for the story to launch from.

To me her character, the rape victim herself, not being valued enough to speak sounds like Nate Parker's Nat Turner has a female possession in the form of a wife that he must avenge rather than wife as person


--just like 95% of all rape victims 
portrayed in male created movies
where the woman is NOT one of the main characters. 



In the male created movies where the male hero is the central character and his girl or his wife is raped, it is the male hero who is REALLY damaged. I've watched entire movies where the male hero is out avenge the weeping raped wife who doesn't care about herself but wants her husband/boyfriend not to get hurt on her trifling behalf. 

I hope black female body as doormat/launch pad is not what's in this movie. But I don't know how Union's character could be anything else if she doesn't speak --especially if this rape that never happened in real life was made up by Nate Parker and Jean Celestin.  

And even more important than the
potential e-race-sure of black women
from pro-active blackness
in a historical movie
is the fact that rapist
is creating the image of a rape victim. 

I can't imagine that a person that refuses to understand what rape is can possibly create anything but a stereotypical, trembling virginal rape victim. It is unlikely that people like Parker can think any other type of woman CAN be raped.

So now I'm wondering if the black women in his movie stiff-upper-lip it after being raped, if they go on as the stereotypical strong, praying, black woman slave usually does or if his rape victims stands around tearful but strong, waiting around to be avenged as is more usual for white-woman damsel-in distress character.

It's likely that there are only a few ways a silent rape victim being played by an actress of Gabriel Union's stature, who has her own TV series, can be portrayed by a man like the unrepentant Nate Parker .

Again, I'm pretty sure one cannot create art that deviates very much from who you are. 

White people have proven this to us again and again that you can't create art/fiction/movies that deviate much from you are. 
For example: When white people create movies about black characters you get movies like The Blind Side, Black and White. Both movies are mixtures of white savior complex and the idea that white racism is a slight misunderstanding. Both of these white fairy tales that are a hellacious mess compared to black people make movies about themselves like  "12 Years A Slave,  Selma, Do The Right Thing, Devil In A Blue Dress, Eve's Bayou, Hollywood Shuffle"    
And when a man who has raped but doesn't think of himself as a rapist (because he probably doesn't believe ho-s can be raped and says "You put yourself in that position" and "We ran a train on _____".) makes a movie, why wouldn't he create a rape victim with virginal image draped in white who doesn't need to speak?

The pristine-good-girl rape victim is the backdrop against which the black male hero can shine and Make Black America Great Again sans any black female agency.


Again, no two feminists have to be alike. But I don't understand how Union allowed herself to be used in this way.  Even if she'd never heard about the rape trial, why would she think it important to play a non-speaking, pristine looking rape victim that just reinforces a stereotype that only "good girls" can be raped? Why would she let him pour gasoline on that idea even she'd never heard of his rape trial?

And if the depictions of black women are as ridiculous as one reviewer has said, why didn't her reading of the rest of the script let her know to stay away from The Birth Of A Nation?  I mean, she read the whole script right? She said she read 700 pages of the trial transcript because she was a rape victim herself. Yet all she came up with when talking about Parker was the equivalent of "Well....we weren't there so we don't know what happened."

Weak answer

Cowardly

Maybe her career depended upon her helping her studio or a studio she might need in the future not losing all 17.5 million dollars they invested in Nate Parker. Again, maybe I wouldn't have done much better.

Maybe.

But I'm still annoyed.

In any case, there are other black folks you can see at the movies. I can recommend two movies.

1) Westerns don't come along every day. And Denzel Washington is in damn near every scene. (He's getting like Tom Cruise that way). So go see THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It's not problem free by any stretch... But it was entertaining. 









THE QUEEN OF KATWE had some adult themes. But I would think a kid above 12 or 13 could handle it.  Women of color made, this is a true Disney film. It's one of those David and Goliath films. I loved it. Lupita Nyongo stars in it along side, Madina Nalwanga, a new little girl actress I hope we're going to see more of.








Saturday, October 8, 2016

PEOPLE KEEP ASKING IF WE CAN SEPARATE THE ART FROM THE ARTIST


BUT BIRTH OF A NATION  PROVES THAT IS NOT THE RIGHT QUESTION
-


"You want me to be a tragic backdrop
so you can appear to be illuminated,
so that people can say
"wow isn't he so terribly brave
to love a girl who is so obviously sad?"

You think I'll be the dark sky
so you can be the star?

I'll swallow you whole"


~Warsan Shire





'


A couple of weeks back, I wrote an entire piece on Gabrielle Union's wobbly defense of Nate Parker. But Parker has been putting his foot in his own mouth so often and so fast, I haven't had a chance to really arrange the 10 million thoughts I have on some black women, even some black feminists like Union, automatically defending black men that are indefensible.

However, the main reason I held back on saying anything about Union is because I though it irresponsible to write about the content of "Birth Of A Nation" a movie I hadn't even seen based on one sentence in Gabriel Union's defense of Nate Parker. Yet, I was able to write what I wrote a few weeks before the movie came out because I felt it was pretty easy to guess how Parker would use black women and the rape scene he inserted into his movie. When a man sees black woman as a stereotype instead of real, it's just not that hard.  And now that I've read a couple of reviews, it's pretty clear that I guessed right.

And I guessed right because most people can't really create art that is very far from who they are. 

It was this one sentence that Gabrielle Union wrote about her part in the movie that made me pretty sure that Parker wasn't capable of imagining a three dimensional black woman with agency, much less a rape victim.



Union said,
"I took this role because I related to the experience. I also wanted to give a voice to my character, who remains silent throughout the film."

It was this one sentence of Union's made me remember a piece of a poem by Warsan Shire, quoted above. 


It was this one sentence of Union's that made me remember the countless number of television shows and movies where a man's wife or girlfriend is raped, where it's made to appear that this man's possession is raped and ruined for him, that the male hero's pain is the only pain that matters.  When patriarchy gives birth to rape culture and the rules are told in a story format, these are the stories you get -- stories very similar to The Birth Of A Nation


from USA TODAY 
by someone who HAS seen the movie

How 'Birth of a Nation' mishandles its portrayal of rape



The Birth of a Nation depicts two rapes.

In the first, Nat’s wife Cherry Ann (Aja Naomi King) is cornered by a group of slave catchers. Just a few scenes later, a white guest of Nat’s master Samuel (Armie Hammer) “requests” Esther, a slave played byGabrielle Union.
Neither of these rapes is shown onscreen. Cherry is cornered by her attackers, but the scene cuts away before they touch her. We see her bruised and swollen face later, when Nat goes to visit her sickbed. In the case of Esther, the attack takes place inside a house while the camera stays outside it. The shot lingers on the face of Esther’s husband Hark (Colman Domingo) during her assault. His pain and trauma are the focal point of the scene — Esther is merely a set piece. When she emerges, hurt and crying, she does not speak. He speaks. He speaks in that scene and much more later, when, as a result of what happened to Esther, he joins Nat’s rebellion.
At Nation’s bombastic Sundance premiere, Parker described most films dealing with American slaveryas "desperately sanitized." He said there was an ongoing "resistance to dealing with this material."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/10/07/birth-of-a-nation-nate-parker-rape-gabrielle-union/91694398/

When I read that Union is silent in this movie, I went from 95% to 99% sure that Nate Parker was incapable of doing anything but what he did.  

In story form, Parker showed us once more that rape and rape accusations are seen as what one man does to another -- as if the women are just collateral damage in a social war between men. This happens in real life, too. Men do actually see the raping another man's woman as harming that man, as taking away the other man's manhood by proving he can't "take care of his woman." That's why men have gone to war and raped the women of the conquered country so consistently throughout history. 

One of the reasons white men consistently raped black women in the United States during slavery and afterward when black women worked primarily as domestics through 1950s(?) was a declaration of white men conquering black men. The lynching of black men by white men was often based on the rape of a white woman that didn't exist --and I'm not JUST saying the black male rapes of white females didn't happen a lot of time. I'm saying the white woman didn't even exist. I'm saying that who rapes, who gets raped, and who winds up in jail for rape is a game where toxic masculinity and racism mix.  

Rape Accusation: A GAME BEST PLAYED BETWEEN MEN


People keep asking if we can separate the art from the artist. That's the question you ask when you want people to go see the movie and television shows of Nate Parker, Matt Damon, Bill Cosby, and Johnny Depp despite crime or ethical violation X. But that's not the right question.

The right question is this: Can the artist create art that is separate from himself.

And I think the answer should be a clear, "No!" 80% of the time, especially if that person is an author, producer, or director.



Think about it. What percentage of white people have successfully created black characters in books, television, and movies? My guesstimate is less than 10 to 15%. White people, as part of the dominant culture, can successfully ignore everything about race, racial perspective, the fact that they have a racial perspective, black  people and black life until they decide to make a movie at 30, 35, or 45 years of age with a black person in it. 

Black and brown people don't have the option to be blind to white people and to the effects of race. In fact, black and brown people have to have a nuanced vision of white people and how they see themselves to even successfully complete school, college, or just get a job. 

And when I think of black characters badly formed and presented as the more ridiculous stereotypes, I'm not talking about something as far back as Amos and Andy  or SapphireI'm talking about movies that are a lot more recent like Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side and Kevin Costner's Black and White.  


If white supremacy soaked white people make movies where they minimize the damage white racism does and/or make themselves the heroes in relation to black people what makes you think the rapist-minded sexist male is going to do anything different when he depicts women?

And when you let a rape-minded 
(or white supremacy minded) artist 
reproduce his vision of black women (or black people)
as something less than three-dimensional people with agency, 
as possessions rather than persons 
that are just backdrop 
against which the black man (or white person) can shine 
then you let that artist's values 
be presented as normal and acceptable to the general public, 
some of whom are influenced by this art.

That's unacceptable.

How is it even possible that anybody could believe 
that something different could come from a man
that wants to claim 
that the new nuanced definitions of the word "consent"
and the technical definitions of "rape"
is/was so confusing 
that he did not understand 
now or at 19 years of age 
that 
(1) putting his penis into a person that doesn't not want it there OR
(2) putting his penis into a person who is likely to be very angry about you having put your penis inside them 
as soon as she is sober  
--much less inviting others to do so-- 
is a heinous act
no matter what word you put on it?
There is about as much point debating the meaning of the words "consent" and "rape" and when they came to be defined or redefined as there is debating how racist white people were NOT in the 1700 to 1800 when they were enslaving, torturing, and genocide-ing blacks and First Nations people just because the word "racism" wasn't fully minted until 1879 to 1932.

Racists know what they are no matter what word you put on it when. They weren't "confused." They were simply evil as h*ll. Rapists aren't confused either.


Unlike Gabrielle Union, I do not think ending rape or reducing rape is a matter of education. I think it's a matter of instilling empathy (if that's even possible) combined with a making sure there is long and life-destroying punishment for rape.

This tends to mean that I think Cory Batey (black) got the right punishment at 15 to 20 years while Brock Turner (white) and Austin Wilkerson (white) did not, 3 months and 0 months respectively. Some black men want to complain about how Cory Batey's sentence was not fair. But it was fair. Batey's sentence was the sentence that's right. So all I can say to them about the comparison of Cory Batey to Brock Turner is too bad for for the white community and hurray for the black community.  

Women's lives will matter when 90% men of men guilty of rape go to jail for rape for 15 to 20 years instead of more than 90% never even seeing the inside of a police station. And Black Lives will matter when very similar conditions occur. When cops guilty of murder go to jail for rape for 15 to 20 years instead of more than 90% never even seriously being questioned, cops claiming to be scared because they somebody with dark skin was chewing their gum too loudly will cease.  

At this point, no matter how many people go to see Parker's film and support him, I am glad that so many black people have stood up and said "No!" to Nate Parker. This wouldn't have happened a few years back. That's why Parker is shocked and behaving so badly. 

He expected sympathy for what he went through after having gotten away with bypassing a woman's consent for years(?) 

Parker did not count on the fact that black women have long recognized the phrases like...
"You put yourself in that position" 
and 


"We ran a train on _________" *  


as marking the rapist as a rapist. 

He did not count on these phrases marking a man 

as easily as 

the use of the word "n*gger" marks the racist as a racist. 




The thing that's different now is that black feminists have a stronger voice. We can protest loud enough to be heard by black male run social media by white-dominated main stream media.

Once more, the right question is this: Can the artist remove what he is from the art he creates? And I have explained my answer. It is pretty much a resounding "H*ll No!"


However,  Bill Cosby might be a quasi-exception in that he created Claire Huxtable, pretty much a feminist, despite being what he is. And, 
I may have to allow that an actor may not be a creator of art of much as the paint an artist like the producer/director uses. Still, there are a few actors that make my stomach churn so much that I can't stand to see them in anything. (I don't want them to have my money anyway. So, it all balances out.)


As previously discussed, white people have not been able to remove their distorted and bizarrely uninformed views of race (due to being racially isolated)** from what they create upwards of 85% of the time when making books, television, and movies about black people.  But, I've only just recently realized just how much black female colorism Bill Cosby has injected into the all of the United States and especially into the black community through the The Cosby Show and A Different World because he couldn't separate himself and his values from his art. 

And now we know that Nate Parker didn't being separate what he is from being the writer, the director, and the star of "Birth Of A Nation" either. His attitudes toward rape, his own rape trial, how lightly he appears to have taken Celestin's initial conviction for rape, and the manner in which Parker inserted rapes that didn't happen into what's supposed to be a historical movie show that the artist spreads his values through his art. 




* - most often code for gang rape that's not seen as a gang rape because rape culture says ho-s can't be raped

**- most articles on the re-segregation of America back to 1968 levels focus on POCs not being able to get into more affluent school districts thus getting a better education. But what you should do is look for articles that look at how sooo very many white children being racially isolated thru age 18 (at school and at home) makes predominantly white schools a breeding ground for fertilizing and continuing white ignorance on race and therefore white racism.

**********

THE GABRIELLE UNION POST WITHHELD
from September 2016 to be posted tomorrow