Aishah Shahidah Simmons has lots to say about the Duke rape case. Based in Philadelphia, Penn, Aishah is the producer, writer, and director of the film NO! The Rape Documentary. She finished No! last August. Its world premiere was in February. And she’s been on tour with it ever since. She’s also the founder and president of AfroLez Productions, LLC, a multimedia arts company.
I spoke with Aishah on the phone in April, on a Friday morning. At that point in the case, there was no DNA evidence. But Friday, May 12th, the defense attorney for the accused Duke rapists, Joe Cheshire, said the semen obtained from vaginal swabs of the accuser indicates that she had sex with a man who is not a Duke student that night.
According to Cheshire, DNA was also found on a plastic press-on fingernail. The fingernail was taken from a trash can by two Duke players who rented the house where the rape is alleged to have occurred. The players were said to have volunteered the fingernail to the Durham, North Carolina police department after the players learned of the rape allegations. The genetic material found on the fingernail does not belong to either of the players who have been indicted.
I’ll withhold my comments.
I caught up with Aishah while she was in L.A., before another screening of No!. Here’s Aishah…
What kinds of comments or questions have you received after your screenings of NO! in light of the Duke rape case?
First, I just want to say the documentary is not about interracial rape. It’s about rape in the Black community. The Duke case is interracial [the accuser is Black and the accused are White].
But it’s interesting. People are really upset. I think they’re upset because the alleged perpetrators are White. I would be curious of what would have happened if [the perpetrators] were Black men. But it [then] becomes, ‘Well, what was she doing in the room?’ You know, those kinds of conversations where I find myself saying, ‘Wait a minute, she was working! And even if she wasn’t working, she doesn’t deserve to be raped! She was hired to do a job.’ So those are the kinds of dialogues that I’ve been experiencing.
In some ways, people will say it is wrong. That it’s definitely wrong. But underneath it all, there’s some way in which the woman gets blamed.
They qualify her rape.
Yeah, qualify. Like why did she have to be a stripper. I’m like, that’s not even the issue!
Who’s making these comments usually? Are women in general saying this? White women? Men? Etc?
Black women. It’s this issue—you know the scholar, Elizabeth Higginbotham? She uses this term, the ‘politics of respectability.’ It’s kind of this shame or embarrassment that [the victim] was a stripper. I think Black women…well, women of color, but I’m speaking about Black women. Black women, I think, struggle with this so much. I see this happening in terms of my screenings of No! It’s all this having to contextualize in order to understand why this person was in the room. It’s like, they have a right! If you say no, they can’t penetrate you. It’s like women can’t say yes to one form of sexual activity, and no to another form.
That’s not exactly what we know about Duke. We just know that she was hired to do a job. But I do think all of this comes up.
What about class differences?
I definitely think class affects this case. Apparently, here in L.A., the head of the Women’s Studies department at Claremont University heard Jesse Jackson say that he was going to give her a scholarship so she wouldn’t have to strip. It’s like, what the hell?! Again, that’s not the issue!
Why? Because stripping is not considered a legitimate form of working and so is not protected by certain labor rights?
Yeah, it’s legal. [And the job was] in the evenings, so it might [have been] convenient because she’s a single mom. She could get someone to watch the kids at night, and she could go to school during the day or be home when they get out of school. Many people don’t think about stuff like that.
What about those comments that have been playing around a lot in mainstream media: ‘Oh, you know guys can get out of hand.’ ‘Sometimes those parties get out of control.’ ‘Beer.’?
Again, yeah! Star Jones on “The View� said, ‘When you’re in a room with a bunch of men, what do you expect?’ And you know, my friend and colleague saw that show and she was like, on the one hand, we’re supposed to trust men. And then on the other hand, we’re supposed to know better. It’s like we can’t have it both ways! If I cannot assume a man is not going to rape me—that he’s so uncontrollable—then if I’m in a room with a whole bunch of them, why should I expect to be raped?
Again, it’s a way of letting men off the hook. ‘Boys will be boys.’ ‘Well, you know they get out of hand.’ How about [rape] is against the law! It’s like saying a bunch of White people, you know sometimes they get drunk and they go out and lynch somebody. It’s not acceptable! Or when race riots happened in L.A. and Black people started looting. We just don’t understand why Black people, when they’re upset about racism, they start riots. That’s unacceptable behavior.
Do you remember when the Central Park jogger case was going on? The group of boys—they were assumed to be boys of color—were often described as “a pack,� or “thugs,� or “predators.�
Exactly, as opposed to these Duke students. That’s not what they’re getting. They’re not a pack, they’re not thugs. And that’s what I’m saying! These are the things that complicate the issue when we’re dealing with sexual assault in communities of color.
What I think many of us do is look at it from a masculine point of view. Definitely, men of color are under seige with racism, but somehow Black women—Black, Brown, Asian—we get told that we’re not part of the equation. Racism doesn’t impact us. We struggle with that stereotype that Black men are rapists, but we don’t struggle with the stereotype of the Black woman whore.
So because this woman is a stripper, it just makes it even more complicated. I hear people. I think it would have been much easier if she was a student [at the school] who just happened to hang out with friends at a party. But because she was a stripper…My heart goes out to her for the fact that she even pressed charges. I hope she’s getting intense psychological support. Because for her to go forward, it’s a whole—whooof!
I read that one of Essence Magazine’s reporters—during an interview with CNN—said that the woman is not living with her parents. She’s living day by day in different places because she is getting death threats. And leaflets were thrown in her parents’ front lawn.
I don’t even know what’s going on. They said there weren’t any fingerprints or anything. It’s like somebody cleaned it, that’s what it sounds like. Like it was a sweep! Because how could that be, come on. It doesn’t make any sense.
Much of the mainstream media has avoided connecting this case to racism. What do you think about that?
Yes, it’s very interesting. Like I said, racism is something Black men experience. It’s not something that Black women experience. And so it does become this interesting reality. It’s really interesting how it’s not really part of the discourse.
You can’t look at these cases without the intersections. And I think the media doesn’t want to look at it, and it is not equipped to look at them. First of all, people don’t value women’s lives, period. White women aren’t having a picnic either.
But there are 911 calls that document that there were racist epithets being used that night.
Right. That’s definitely what I heard and read. What makes this interesting for me is that this is an interracial rape, and seeing how people deal with that. In some ways, I think it’s easier for communities of color because it’s all White men. Again, I really, really question if this had been an all Black basketball team, football team—would it have gotten a national outcry? And how would the Black community have responded? Currently, the Black community is doing its thing because [the perpetrators are] White—I’m convinced. I can’t even imagine if she accused a group of Black men of raping her!
Because then it would be, oh, you’re making us look bad?
Yes, because she’s a stripper. What was she doing?
What are other things people should keep in mind? What are things the mainstream media is not touching on before this story is forgotten?
I hear you. I think that what we need to talk about—because the discourse has been women going into a room with a billion men and what the effects are. I think we need to talk about this woman as an employee who was there to do a job. And her job was to be a stripper. That was her job. She did not go there to be raped. And even if she said yes to two, and no to one—she was still raped. She was there to work.
She didn’t go there to have racial epithets thrown at her, and definitely not to be raped. I think we need to get out of—it’s the same way we view all women—what was she doing there? Blah. Blah. This type of discussion—well, if you’re going to be around a group of men to provide entertainment for them, what do you expect? I think we just need to say, if you’re going to do a job, you should not expect to be raped.
And death threats because she accused. This woman has been violated in the most intimate, personal, psychological way, and just to have to come forward…I’m a rape survivor, but I’ve never testified…and to go through the rape kit. That stuff is not easy to do! But people still think, oh, she’s crying, ‘Rape! Rape!’
For me, it’s so clear that something happened, at a bare minimum. I believe that she was raped. It’s so clear to me because who would go through all of that? I mean Duke is an elitist institution. She’s a Black woman, they were White men. She’s a single-parent. This is not your ‘ideal’ case here! So that alone makes me feel that she is not lying as far as I’m concerned.
Do you think it was wise of her to press charges so quickly because if she didn’t, then everyone would be accusing her of waiting too long, and so of course lying?
Exactly. I’m really upset. As a Black woman, I am upset for plenty of reasons. Where are the voices of the Black women’s organizations? Even mainstream White women? I don’t hear Ms? Where is the feminist movement? What’s going on? There is no major outcry for feminist support. Nobody is supporting this woman. Nobody is saying ‘Not in my name!’ Nobody is doing that.
You’re right. I haven’t heard anything from NOW. Or the NAACP.
Not at a national level. And then what’s really pissing me off is the people who are talking, or at least getting the media’s attention, are Black men and I’m sick of it! I don’t know if Black women aren’t saying anything. It’s like if a tree falls down in the woods and nobody sees it, did it happen? I’m sure there are Black women saying something, but who gets the voice?
Do you think it’s like Black men speaking for ‘their women’ thing, because White men violated ‘their women’?
On some level. Like Jesse Jackson saying he’s going to give her a scholarship. It’s like, what the hell?! That’s not going to help her! The issue isn’t that she shouldn’t be stripping! The issue is she shouldn’t be raped!
And what’s next? Are people going to start advocating that women can’t work at night now?
Yeah, I saw something that they’re trying to do an escort service. Sorry, I don’t want all of that! I don’t want an escort service. I just want the ability to be safe. I want men to be kept in check, and men to keep themselves in check. And particularly for me, as a lesbian, I don’t want men’s protection. I don’t need that. No, that’s not really what I’m looking for. I just want to live in a world where I am safe. Again, I think it goes back to the discussion about sex work.
Have sex worker organizations stepped up to the plate in support of her? I haven’t heard anything.
Yeah. It’s just an interesting thing. I get so many emails from people about the case. But in terms of who’s doing what, nothing. It’s just interesting. Unlike Anita Hill for instance, you know—legal scholar, Ivy League grad. Everybody came by her. She was the acceptable victim. She was a respectable Black woman. But this woman isn’t.
What other comments have you heard while screening NO!? Have they been mostly around the Duke case? Or are they a mix between the case and the documentary?
There’s one woman in the documentary who talks about agreeing to oral sex and not wanting to be penetrated. So I think that kind of opens up the door to women giving mixed messages. ‘So is it my fault if that woman gives me mixed messages?’ Wait a minute, that’s still that woman’s body. So I don’t care if she’s giving you mixed messages. It’s her body. And if it’s a mixed message, then accept it as a No. If you’re not clear, it’s No.
So for many men, a woman’s body is still their possession. And society plays into it. Come on! Any other thing—if I leave my G4 Mac computer at Starbucks, leave it, go home and blah blah, and somebody steals it—they’re a thief. And I could press charges on them for stealing my computer. People might say, ‘What the hell are you doing leaving your G4 there? That was stupid.’ But I can still press charges. It’s just not the Duke case. It’s the rape of women, and the rape of Black women. I think we’ve gotten worse in terms of our view of women’s rights. I don’t even think we’re there anymore.
I’ve read that some Black female Duke students have said that the White guys on campus look at them as if they’re one of the women in the hip hop videos. Do you think that’s part of this—Black women dress like that so what do they expect? Many of 'Middle America’s' interaction with people of color is usually not that often, so their perceptions usually revolve around what they see in the media.
I think that’s true. But the thing is that it’s almost ahistorical in a sense because I feel that from the time Black people were brought over here, that that was always used against us as a reason for being raped over and over again in enslavement.
Definitely the hip hop videos…I have my whole perspective on that, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a part of a continuum, an ongoing legacy. White men have created and bought into it. And I would argue that Black men have also bought into it. It’s across the board. I think as a result of popular culture—it’s much more acceptable. Everybody has cable—from Des Moine, Iowa to Harlem, New York—they all see the same video practically. It’s part of a continuum. It’s almost as if we should go back to Victorian-style clothing to prove our purity, chastity. And for me, that’s what I want to dissect and pull apart.
No. I don’t care what you’re doing. You could have sex with 100 people, and at 101 be like—‘Eh, eh. No’. And that’s NO. It doesn’t matter. And that’s the kind of stuff that trips everybody up. I think it trips everybody up across the board, but within this context, in America, with Black people, that’s become a problem.
And with Black men—there’s this way that patriarchy unifies men. Yeah, Black men are victims in a white supremacist society. But they’re perpetrators in a male patriarchal sexist society. And it’s this way that Black and White men can bond in some way.
In terms of films—these Boys in the Hood-type films—that’s because the White gatekeepers of Hollywood live vicariously through Black men. They’re not interested in Black women’s stories. So with these music videos, yeah, White men can live out their sick fantasies and with our racist, sexist history, play in it. So the music videos play a role, but I think it’s part of a continuum.
The current movement of the Religious Right, do you think it has any affect on this case?
Yes. My thing with the Religious Right is people often think White, Right Wing. But the the Religious Right is alive and well in the African American community in churches and mega churches. Not to say the churches were not sexist back in the 60s—but gone are the days of liberation [theology]. I think it now reinforces patriarchy—reinforcing women’s place. And so what happens is, these mega churches acknowledge women’s pain—‘I know you’ve been raped. I know you’ve been abused. You’ve been sleeping around. But now God is your father, your husband.’ People kind of reinforce it. And many women are wounded and looking for something. And you’ve got these men in pastor’s clothing who are basically revictimizing them and reblaming them. And definitely, with all this morality, the stripper thing makes her not an acceptable “victim.�
I also think there’s this move—as gays and lesbians get more active—there’s this move to control women’s sexuality. And I think that’s what the religious movement is doing. It’s sick. It’s very much a way of controlling. So when you step out of line, this is what happens—this is what you get.
Do you want to talk about NO!?
I started working on NO! in October of 1994 and didn’t complete it until August 2005. The reason it took so damn long was because I couldn’t get funding about the rape and sexual assault of Black women as a Black woman. And this is from the mainstream funders. And I’m an out lesbian, so that’s a whole other—that’s probably worse than being a stripper, actually. (Laughs).
Even in terms of getting impact. I have big-time African American women experts with PhDs, and scholars—and a lot of people, big time cable people, have a lot of resistance to that. ‘Where did you get all these smart Black women from?’ ‘Let’s face it nobody cares about Black women and girls, so we’re not going to fund this project.’ And I had this Black funder say in writing, ‘The fact can’t be denied, the moral point of view is that a woman shouldn’t be in a man’s room at 2 am in the morning.’ This was in a grant rejection letter! So it was really a Black feminist grassroots movement that made NO! I got support from smaller women’s foundations and definitely from lesbian and gay foundations. But I couldn’t get those big grants you need to make a film.
It’s filmed all across the country. There’s music and dance and poetry. Practically everyone who worked on No! was a woman. I would say 95 percent women of color. And I was committed to paying everybody. So for me, what was going on in front of the camera was as important as what was going on behind the camera. How we were treating women, paying women, women of color technicians—that was important to me.
So [in NO!]I was trying to tease out this notion, challenging this notion. I feel it’s a myth that we’ve accepted: rejecting the myth of the Black male rapist and willingly accepting the myth of the Black female whore. They’re two sides to the same coin! It’s the same thing: Black male rapists—that’s why they were lynched. Black female whores—that’s why we were raped. But yet we don’t look at that. We don’t pull that apart!
For me, I see talking about the rape and sexual assault of Black women as feminizing Black history. Because there’s this way when we come forward that we’re betrayers of the race. So really, I start from enslavement. Talking about women, and what we had to go through. In addition to being beat and picking cotton—Black women were also being raped. And the lynching of Black men, and how we, Black women, were at the forefront of the anti-lynching movement. So this kind of notion that we don’t support Black men—I really wanted to challenge that. I show in the 60s with the Black power movement, and the Black Panther party, how Black women were part of those movements and still being assaulted. So, and we couldn’t stop it because who was going to call the cops in 1964? Ha! Who wants to call them in 2006?
All in all while listening to these testimonies where, with the exception of one, everybody knew their perpetrator. They were either lovers, professors, comrades or friends. I did that on purpose because that’s rape—you’re not going to be yanked out of the street. Somebody’s not going to break into your house. You have a higher probability of being raped by somebody you know. So really pushing that [in the film].
And so I think pertaining to the Duke case, it’s forced people to start thinking differently, or at least interrogate themselves. I’ve got really good, good people who are opposed to rape but are like, ‘Yeah, but we have to take responsibility, too. We can’t go into a man’s room and not know what’s going to happen.’ Again, it’s like what are we saying? Are we saying men are uncontrollable animals? Nobody wants to say it that way. That the brain is on the woman.
And how can you walk out every day with that reality in your head?
Right. So it’s on us. We should dress more properly. Be covered up. But what about women who get raped by their dads? Muslim women get raped. All women get raped!
The other thing that is interesting to think about, in the Kobe Bryant case, she did agree upon a certain sexual activity. She did not want to be penetrated anally. That really didn’t come up. She didn’t say she didn’t want to have [vaginal] sex—she said she didn’t want to be penetrated anally. Kobe wrote a letter to her after the case was settled basically apologizing. Basically admitting to, ‘I wanted you to want it.’ So it’s this interesting dichotomy that happens.
So how long can you have consent? If I spend the night with my boyfriend. Let’s say a woman is going to spend the night with her boyfriend, and she said yes that night, but in the morning changes her mind—is that rape? There’s this notion that men have unlimited access to women’s bodies and she never really has the right to say no.
I had a man at a screening say, ‘Where I come from, if you take a woman out on a date, you’re supposed to rape her.’ ‘Or I had sex with a lot of women, at first they said no, but at the end they said yes.’ Straight face, calm, cool and collective.
Or like the White woman who said prior to seeing NO!, she didn’t know Black women could be raped. I have a very good friend Mark Anthony Neal at Duke. I’ve heard that in some of the classes, that some students have said, ‘Why should we believe some Black whore over Duke students?’ The Black women Duke students in the class said, ‘Well what does that make us?’
In terms of law—for women of color—is it race or gender? The laws are not set up to deal with the intersections on our lives. I mean, I still can’t believe how long it took for people to give a shit about what was going on in Lourdes. I mean mainly the mainstream White feminist movement. Again if you go to the NOW website, or to Ms., nobody is saying anything. There’s no big outcry here. But Laci Peterson! We’re so inundated with all these White women. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t be. The problem is it’s not across the board. Black, Brown, Yellow, Red—women of color are not valued.
It became very clear to me, people who were making these [movie-funding] decisions, that most of them are definitely White and male, and they don’t care. But what happens is—there’s all this space. There’s a lot of space for hip hop films and documentaries on sexism and misogyny—which are important. This is not coming from an ‘either or’ at all. But it’s very interesting how that can get promoted and talked about. But a documentary that looks at Black women herstory in this country from slavery to present day, and rape and sexual assault—having prominent African American women scholars, many of whom, people don’t even know who they are—that's not viewed as worthy. So I had to kind of step back—and was like who has been my audience, who has been the backbone? No, it hasn’t been these mainstream White folks. It’s been Black people, people of color, queer. So I had to step back and be like who do I want this for?
But as a filmmaker you want to win the Academy Award. And it was a personal dream to have my film at Sundance. But I had to take a step back and say wait, why are you doing this film? Because I see myself as an activist who uses film and video to evoke change. I call myself a filmmaker. I definitely am that. So I had to take a step back and see why am I seeking affirmation from these people who are perpetuating the same stereotypes I’m trying to battle.
I know the video is technically sound. That’s why it took so long because I paid a lot of money over years to do it. And I’ve seen stuff that these festivals have accepted. And there are only a handful of women of color who get selected. Our voices are not being heard in the media. No one’s really interested in a radical woman of color’s perspective.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Aishah Shahidah Simmons: Words on the Duke Rape Case.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/3276
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
The woman is making the whole thing up. I'm not about to defend the Duke lacrosse team, but it appears that the girl just got in a fight over money and wanted to get back at them.
Shawn - Her case is not looking good (certainly not by the standard of reasonable doubt), but unless you were there I don't understand how you can definitively say, "The woman is making the whole thing up".
I agree! The striper made the whole thing up. I wonder it the inconclusive DNA match is from the 3rd player the stripper was only 90% sure of. The two she's 100% sure of has air tight alibis.
The stripper has serious character flaws judging by her criminal pass:
• Stripper made a false claim of rape by three boys in 1996.
• Stripper made a false claim of kidnapping in 1998
• Stripper charged with larceny, auto theft, and trying to kill a police officer in 2002
The stripper’s account of the night has serious integrity issues:
• First she claimed 20 boys raped her, then she narrowed it down to 3 in a bathroom
o The bathroom is absolutely and completely devoid of any evidence of a rape. Where is her DNA? Urine, blood, vaginal fluid, saliva, or tears?
o Many people’s DNA were found under her nails but none from the innocent lacrosse boys.
o She lied about losing her fake finger nails in a desperate struggle in the small enclosed bathroom, but pictures show that she removed her nails before inadequately performing her routine. No scratches were found on any of the innocent lacrosse boys’ bodies.
o The 2 innocent boys she “eeny meeny miney moed� to be her rapists weren’t even at the party the time she claimed the rape occurred. She claims that she’s 100% sure, but she told her father that she’s not sure.
o She took drugs before coming to the house, something illegal.
• The 2nd stripper stated that she doubted that a rape occurred, but changed her story after given a deal by DA Nifong, then contact a PR firm to “spin this scandal to her advantage.�
The stripper obviously lied, and she’s putting these innocent boys and families through hell. She deserves to be in prison for the rest of her pathetic life. She is worthless as a person and human being. Her one lie destroyed innocent boys. I hope her and Nifong’s aura catches up to them and they get what they deserve. I hope everyone wishing this rape claim to be true, in spite of all the evidence that it never occurred, gets what’s coming to them.
Fascinating, Celina. I never would have known about this film. I hope I can see it where I live out in the boonies.
(I'm not touching the trolls.)
We don't know what the case really looks like. The media has a magical way of altering how a case looks. That's why whites had sucha hard time believing that a jury would aquit OJ, and why kobe bryant is still walking around despite massive evidence against him.
Pl;us, apparently if you use the word stripper enough times and decide to know absolutely nothing about rape then it's easy to see the evidence in a certain way. Time stamps are extremely easily altered. False identification are extremely common in gang raped EVEN WHEN A CRIME OCCURED. The primary way of telling if rape occured would be vaginal tearing. I know it';s technicaly possible for that to occur durrin g rough, consensual sex but it's not very common. Nobody actually claims that the previous rape allegations were false, just that she didn't pursue charges. Stop reading everything that whack job at talk left says and taking it as gospel.
And I hope that that people like the above poster, who seem to pretend rape never occurs and bends over backwards to deny it every time it happens learns what suffering truly is.
Frankly, that presser didn’t tell me anything. Except maybe there will be some slut-baiting…
According to Cheshire, DNA was also found on a plastic press-on fingernail. The fingernail was taken from a trash can by two Duke players who rented the house where the rape is alleged to have occurred. The players were said to have volunteered the fingernail to the Durham, North Carolina police department after the players learned of the rape allegations.
The problem is, apparently there were seven fake fingernails found and not all were in the trash. One appears to have DNA on it. Remember, she is a stripper and the kind of argument they use; the nature of her profession could have her touching her legs, knees, and hands to the floor and perhaps run her fingers through their hair, she likely touched doors and door handles, and according to both stories she was in the bathroom at some point … yet a swab of her whole body produced nothing matching them but we have to believe the Lacrosse player’s DNA got onto a fingernail by chance? Remember, of all the fingernails they gathered, one of them managed to get that DNA onto it. Notice first how Chesire said it matched “some� and then “one or two�. So, by chance, this easily passed DNA which was so innocent got onto one nail. The defense attorney wants to underplay the significance of DNA being similar in nature to that of perhaps two players (and remember, these guys are all white; what are the chances of them matching only two much less a match of any nature at all?) yet at the same time wants us to believe it got there so innocently. Also, what was the nature of the DNA found in them that matched that of the Lacrosse players? If it was skin tissue as the leak suggested, this may not be as “innocent� as suggested.
The two she's 100% sure of has air tight alibis.
She said she was 100 percent sure he looked like the man. Read the transcript. One has an “alibi�.
• Stripper made a false claim of rape by three boys in 1996.
She said two raped her, 3 drove her. It hasn’t been shown as false. What she said later wasn’t, either.
• First she claimed 20 boys raped her, then she narrowed it down to 3 in a bathroom
She didn’t claim that, a Duke guard who had virtually no jurisdiction had to put something down in his report. So he put down what he thought he heard another cop who wasn’t directly involved in the case say over the phone based on the context he believed it was in to another one.
o The bathroom is absolutely and completely devoid of any evidence of a rape. Where is her DNA? Urine, blood, vaginal fluid, saliva, or tears?
I’m sure you’re no expert, but I’d like to know what you’re measuring this against. First of all, there was DNA on a fingernail.
o Many people’s DNA were found under her nails but none from the innocent lacrosse boys.
Where have you been? Yes, there were. It matches perhaps two according to the defense … who, funnily enough, is trying to suggest it could get there innocently and won’t disclose the nature of the DNA for either. Rumor has it that its tissue. Not good.
o She lied about losing her fake finger nails in a desperate struggle in the small enclosed bathroom, but pictures show that she removed her nails before inadequately performing her routine. No scratches were found on any of the innocent lacrosse boys’ bodies.
Right, like the pictures showed that a Lacrosse player helped her into a the car when she left? That are time-stamped and everything? Which we now know from the defense’s own witness the car they exited in was white which means the picture was possibly doctored? Yeah.
There were seven fake fingernails found. If the pictures actually showed missing nails (like they were supposed to show a staggering, beat-up stripper in that condition when she arrived which they didn’t), it can depend on how many are missing. It can also depend on if she had tried to reapply them.
About the men (not boys) and scratches, another is to be indicted; given the long time-frame, they may have all but healed if there were.
o The 2 innocent boys she “eeny meeny miney moed� to be her rapists weren’t even at the party the time she claimed the rape occurred. She claims that she’s 100% sure, but she told her father that she’s not sure.
First of all they’re grown men. Remember? Secondly, if you read the transcript, she said she was 100% sure they looked like them. If she really told her father that, it is perfectly consistent with the documented line-up identification. Again, read the damn transcript. One appears to have not been at the party at some point.
o She took drugs before coming to the house, something illegal.
I’d like to know where you got this one. But it doesn’t really matter, so…
• The 2nd stripper stated that she doubted that a rape occurred, but changed her story after given a deal by DA Nifong, then contact a PR firm to “spin this scandal to her advantage.�
Pray tell when she changed “her story�? Seriously. I mean she changed her opinion to saying she now believes a rape could have occurred, but when did she change her story? And you must not know much about witnesses in cases, especially high-profile ones because contacting a PR firm is *not* unusual. Also, what she said in the email she undoubtedly knew was going to be seen wasn’t anything about the case. It would be one thing if she mentioned details about it. But it was about how she felt she wasn’t going to look good given her profession. Again, this is far from unusual.
I don’t know if she was really raped or not, but the fact that people use half-truths, falsehoods, misrepresentations, and word-games to show she is lying speaks volumes. I mean people go out on a limb to believe these men and give them the benefit of the doubt and don’t take into account their actions, but with her? Oh, no. Any inconsistency which is even understandable possible human error means she is lying. If there is a different claim for something she claims happens then she is lying. She is a filthy stripper so she is terrible, they are drinking underage, have displayed racist and demeaning overtones and they’re “poor boys�. People keep bitching about “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!� but it seems more like “innocent until proven guilty so the alleged victim is lying until proven truthful or there is no other explanation for something she claims happened� instead of “innocent until proven guilty is the legal view and it is the job of the alleged victim and DA to show beyond a reasonable doubt a rape occurred at the hands of the alleged perpetrators�. It seems like people are more concerned about these “good boys� looking bad due to this ewwwy, black stripper. It seriously seems like it isn’t out of genuine concern for somebody who may be innocent.
Aaaaanyway-
In terms of films—these Boys in the Hood-type films—that’s because the White gatekeepers of Hollywood live vicariously through Black men. They’re not interested in Black women’s stories. So with these music videos, yeah, White men can live out their sick fantasies and with our racist, sexist history, play in it. So the music videos play a role, but I think it’s part of a continuum.
Amen to that.
Great article, but I’m still going over it a few times to get everything.
Thanks, Durga. It is good to see someone here who realizes that none of us KNOW what happenned in that house. We are arguing from incomplete information leaked to us by parties with specific interests in the case (on both sides). While the case is interesting in its own right, I have become a bit obsessed with how people are reacting to it. Too many people on both sides assume knowledge based on bias and desire but little fact.
Great interview, Celina.
This is a fantastic, thought-provoking interview. Thank you Aishah for pointing out that it doesn't matter *what* the woman was doing in the house, she did NOT ask to be raped!!
Thanks for publishing this bit of sanity in the otherwise increasingly nonsensical coverage of this case.
I really hope I get a chance to see this film. It sounds amazing.
It seems like everybody has a lot to say about the Duke Rape case. I’m sure a lot of it is accurate, and even productive. Nevertheless, as an attorney I take umbrage with the piling on and politicization of cases like this. Our system is not perfect, but it is called the greatest truth detector known to man. If we let the system work, all the facts will come to light. Barring that, we will certainly know more after a trial then before.
I say let the process go foreword and save the analyzing for the facts once established.
It's at times like these I feel most hopeless about our ability to determine, to the standards of a court of law, whether or not a rape occurred. Short of fighting so hard we're beaten half to death, what can anyone do?
Awesome article Celina. I'm going to have to read it a few times too, to get all the good stuff. I'm keeping my eye out for that film.
I don't really want to get into the fray here, but I would like to point out that in every discussion I've seen about this case, casual or professional journalism, there's only been one or two instances I've seen where the accuser here is not referred to as "The Stripper." These issues of "respectability" that Ms. Simmons brings up are definitely, definitely present... many people don't even -know- that she was also a college student, or any other "respectable" detail like that. The common perception of her is this dossier of everything not socially acceptable that she's ever done.
look, the issue is not just that the DNA evidence has failed to come back with any sort of definitive "finger" to point at the accusers. It's much more than that.
PRIOR to the DNA returning, the defense was stating that they were confident that the DNA would come back negative.
This was either the most insanely prescient bluff I've seen since the last time Phil Ivey played the World Poker Tour, or it is VERY VERY strong evidence that the defense attorney's clients are not JUST not guilty (iow, it can't be proved), but are in fact INNOCENT (iow, they didn't DO it).
Attorneys are not supposed to ask questions they don't already know the answer to. for obvious reasons. similarly, NO defense attorney will ever claim BEFORE DNA returns that it will come back as NOT fingering their suspect. That would be beyond the valley of absurd.
So many people look at race and automatically fit people into groups. You have a lower income minority woman (oppressed class *3 according to some people's logic) accusing "privileged" spoiled white drunken jocks of rape. Oh, the possibilities for identity politics, and all other sorts of irrelevant tripe to rear their ugly heads.
Dershowitz is very right that rape is simultaneously the most underreported and overreported Part I crime. Iow, people are less likely to report rape, than to report robbery, burglary, or auto theft. On the other hand, people are more likely to make false complaints than these other types of crimes. And unlike false reports of burglary (done for insurance fraud purposes), false claims of rape usually "finger" a specific suspect vs. a false burglary claim which just wants to bilk an insurance company and would thus be a self-defeating strategy to name a suspect.
I am not saying she is lying. I am saying that *given* a rape claim, i realize there is a reasonably high probability the claim is false. I also realize that in the instant case there are many very compelling pieces of excupatory evidence that just keep coming to the surface.
The prosecutor is clearly motivated by either politix, or just pure self-promotion (just prior to his reelection), and imo has clearly violated any reasonable prosecutor ethics code ( i briefly reviewed some relevant stuff from his home state, but these things are relatively uniform nationwide), by making many ex parte statements that just DRIP of politics, but also drip of something very scary - which is a prosecutor that has made up their mind long before the investigation is complete, and is thus prone to discount any exculpatory evidence, alibis etc. without giving them fair review - which is the job of the prosecutor's office - to look at evidence from BOTH sides fairly.
The issues regarding the witness who already contacted a PR firm and admitted publically that she wanted to spin this event to benefit herself - seriously impugns her credibility, as does the fact that the prosecutors have already given her special dispensation regarding a FELONY probation violation issue while simultaneously serving a warrant of arrest on a defense witness (cab driver), from an ancient MISDEMEANOR warrant.
furthermore, as any investigator knows, a disinterested witness (iow, a witness not friends of an involved party) is always more reliable, ceteris paribus than an involved party e.g. the second stripper. and nearly everything coming from DISINTERESTED witnesses - from the cab driver, to the neighbors, not to mention all the photographs, etc. almost always benefit the defense.
this case looks shakier than a drunk on a wobbleboard at this point. there are too many political issues involving race, gender, class, etc. such that i think too many people give way too much benefit of the doubt to an accuser that has clear credibility problems, and there was far too much of a rush to judgment that these drunk, rich, privileged, white lacrosse players MUST be guilty.
First of all, I have to say to Celina--kudos. This interview is just amazing.
Instead of arguing back and forth about the details of the Duke case, I'm really interested in hearing what people think about the issues Simmons brings up about race/gender/rape at large. What about the big picture?
I dont really care that she was a stripper. That is irrelevant to me, and its disgusting the way people are using it against her. HOWEVER, she does have serious credibility issues in her history that have nothing to do with stripping (bc that is not an issue of credibility). with the fact that now the second DNA test came up negative, i am believing her story less and less. as a rule, i always almost automatically side with the victim, since rape is so grossly underreported that to come out and say you were raped takes great courage. i just am having a harder and harder time doing it in this case. i am starting to think this girl is lying. i hope not, because that just makes her even more despicable, since its hard enough already to get rape convictions without highly publicized cases of women lying about it.
About some of the issues Simmons brings up:
" I would be curious of what would have happened if [the perpetrators] were Black men. But it [then] becomes, ‘Well, what was she doing in the room?’"
"And I had this Black funder say in writing, ‘The fact can’t be denied, the moral point of view is that a woman shouldn’t be in a man’s room at 2 am in the morning.’"
I found it interesting that Simmons thought that the main reason why the Duke case is creating such a public outcry is because the alleged perpetrators are white. She seemed to be saying in the interview (a couple of times) that black women would be expected to NOT report a similar crime on the grounds of not making black men "look bad." This is interesting to me, in that there seems to be a scale of awfulness regarding rape depending on the race of the rapist to some groups of people. In that we live in a rape culture in the U.S., I have to wonder where the line of protection for women falls concerning rape, and wonder at the possibility that this line is different depending on the woman's color and the color of her attacker. Simmons seems to assert that some women receive protection and/or outrage against rape not because they are women, but because they are the "property" of a certain group of people.
"Like I said, racism is something Black men experience. It’s not something that Black women experience."
I would be interested to hear more about this. I honestly don't know if this was said toungue-in-cheek or seriously, but I have always understood that black women have to deal with the double whammy of racism and sexism combined.
"Where are the voices of the Black women’s organizations? Even mainstream White women? I don’t hear Ms? Where is the feminist movement? What’s going on? There is no major outcry for feminist support."
I think that this is a very telling phenomenon. I think that Simmons hit the nail on the head when she spoke of there needing to be an "acceptable victim," particularly in the black community. I can understand why feminist and black women's organizations would be very, very careful before rallying behind the alleged rape victim--the evidence is sketchy and becoming sketchier by the day, and for the women's organization that rallied behind a woman who cried a foul "rape" charge, it would be devastating, not only for said organization, but for every authentic rape victim slighted and taken less seriously. I think that women's organizations are waiting for the logical thing: more facts; a trial. They are not playing the media guilt-roulette game, and I think it's a wise decision.
"The issue isn’t that she shouldn’t be stripping! The issue is she shouldn’t be raped!"
Thank you. That, I think, is the whole crux of the issue.
This interview was utterly amazing, better than a CNN or Foxnews special report could have ever done.
My big question is though, what if the rape victim wasn’t black but white would that have really made a difference in the case? Mass market media these days needs to fuel American hearts by turning this case into a race issue. Is it working...you bet it is!
Sylke, I believe she was talking about the way the mainstream media ignores race...that's why she also ays, "You can’t look at these cases without the intersections."
"mainstream media IGNORES race?"
lol.
amazing
i think aishah makes an excellent point about the politics of respectability and how it is used against this particular woman, within the black community. she holds a job that is considered to be immoral, therefore, why would national black orgs, who all embrace those middle-class politics, give her any support?
it is very upsetting that there is no organized national outcry from black groups. and what saddens me the most, is what aishah said, many blacks i have spoken with still say..."well she was in a room full of drunk boys, what did she think was going to happen"
and she is also on point about white hollywood living through the images of black men. i mean, look at all of the "black" films that come out that glorify the urban, black male body and vilify the urban, black female body--it's like, privileged white men see themselves in the black gangsta, since, these are the majority of images that we see of black men in mainstream media.
btw, more on the politics of respectability can be found in evelyn brooks higginbotham's book: righteous discontent
ladies, might I remind you that at first she said 20 men raped her.
Then pictures have showed her stumbling around when she was suppose to have been raped, one of the players was not around at the time. He was at the bank withdrawing money to go eat something.
All men have maintained their innocence, as they would rat each other out if this was not the case.
This woman has made allegations of rape before.
Clearly I think she is of this mindset.
"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."
Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students – Catherine Comin
We have 15k rape convictions a year, 1000 times higher than all of the industrialized nations, I think we have feminism to thank for that. We need to stop letting lesbians dictate the future of relations betwix men and women.
ladies, might I remind you that at first she said 20 men raped her.
Then pictures have showed her stumbling around when she was suppose to have been raped, one of the players was not around at the time. He was at the bank withdrawing money to go eat something.
All men have maintained their innocence, as they would rat each other out if this was not the case.
This woman has made allegations of rape before.
Clearly I think she is of this mindset.
"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."
Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students – Catherine Comin
We have 15k rape convictions a year, 1000 times higher than all of the industrialized nations, I think we have feminism to thank for that. We need to stop letting lesbians dictate the future of relations betwix men and women.
Okay, this is getting desperately pathetic...
ladies, might I remind you that at first she said 20 men raped her.
There are some gentlemen here, too. And, no she didn't. The guard needed a report filled, he had no juristiction, so he wrote down something he heard said by a cop not assigned to the case during a phone-call at the loading dock completely out of context. They know this now, which is why the defense backed-off saying this was more "proof".
Anyway, I like how she points out we hear about racism from the black-male experience and not black women. I've always noticed that; you'll see these Hustle and Flow-type movies, Boyz In the Hood and black women are secondary characters.
I also wonder when people are going to address how you'll see a dark complextioned black male on tv and noticable African features, yet most of the time the black women will have lighter skin and pointed European features. That's another one I've noticed.
I just wanted to say I live in Durham and have been amazed at how many bogus facts have been repeated as gospel truths in this discourse. You all don't event qualify your statements with "it seems" or "appears" to be so. Folks repeat inaccurate bits and pieces of information and construct massive arguments and rationalizations around them. But these little tid-bits are often untrue, unclear, or incomplete. So they shift and change like quicksand making your grandiose belief-systems shake and quake, and making those of you who construct these positions look like fools. Plain and simple.
Do I think she was raped? Yes. Do I think there are issues of racism, classism, sexism, and violence against women that must be addressed and worked on throughout this country? Yes. Will those things be true and of critical importance whether a rape occurred on Buchanan St. or not? Hell yes. But will I go around shouting about what did and didn't happen, citing obscure "facts" from ever-changing "news reports" and insisting all the way that my BELIEF is FACT? Only if I want to look a damn fool.
Please be reminded of what was stated several times early in this exchange:
YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT DID OR DIDN'T HAPPEN. YOU NEVER WILL. NO MATTER WHAT. SO STOP DELLUDING YOURSELF AND OTHERS BY ASSERTING THAT YOU DO/WILL. CONCENTRATE INSTEAD ON THE LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THIS SITUATION AS WELL AS THE PROGRESS AND CHANGE THAT MUST OCCUR IN THIS SOCIETY.
I think people who want to quibble on endlessly about the DNA technicalities, court processes, and dissect Nifong's handling of the case bit-by-bit are often doing so to avoid talking about the racism and misogyny they don't want to admit. I believe that she was raped. But, I KNOW that this whole thing has made it a lot easier to spot a bigot - the politically-correct lingo that many hateful ignorant comments are protected by really breaks down when people can't call her anything but a "stripper" and when they wonder why this "is being turned into" a race issue. Pssst... your backside's showing -
thanks to Aishah for being such an important feminist and anti-racist leader and clear thinker on all these complex issues. great interview.
about the debate on the duke lacrosse case. i want to agree with what many have said...none of us can know for sure unless we were there.
but CONTEXT is important. regardless of what we do or don't know about the duke case, we can know A LOT about our society. like that Black women are the most underpaid of all workers, by the factual, no-room-for-debate numbers. that we are just a few generations away from slavery in which folks like my white ancestors, women and men, were legally allowed to own black folks, women and men. and we know that under the system of slavery, black women were systematically raped by white men. its documented, look it up.
whatever did or didn't happen that night, we have an epedimic of instiutional Racism and Sexism in our society, by the numbers (education, incarceration, police murder, income, wealth, health access etc.). Racial and Gender disparities abound and are easily confirmed through a little internet research. we have a history of institutional Racism and Sexism. Not to mention capitalism, and class divisions.
the way this is playing out, who is inclined towards sympathy for who is not coincidence. there's a a history there, and there's lived experience. women and men see the world differently, Black folks, other folks of color and white folsk see the world differently, poor folks, middle class folks and rich folks too. all because of b/c of different lived experiences. i'm not saying all people of a certain group see things the same way, but there are some patterns based on experience.
to the folks (most of whom seem to be white men) who are screaming "innocent until proven guilty"....do you scream this loud on this issue when it is a Black man accused of rape? A Latina woman accused of robbbery? A Black girl accused of dealing drugs? If you truly believe so strongly in innocent until proven guilty, and a need for care and information gathering in court cases, are you out there advocating for the many Black and Brown folks incarcerated after speedy trials with shoddy lawyers? For the rising female prison population?
Its really interesting to watch what this whole incident has laid bare. I am sad to say that despite being white, I'm clearly out of touch with what many in my white community truly think about race, class and gender. we're at a sad, small, defensive place as a community. we got problems.
And last I want to say something a little shocking...if by some chance this is one of the very few cases of false accusation that statistically occur...so what? of course it would be terrible for the falsely accused....but in the current day there are MANY MANY folks "falsely imprisoned" ALL THE TIME. and MOST of them are NOT white men who go to elite universities. by the numbers, most of them are Black and Latino Men and Poor White Men...check out the Innoocence Project for more info www.innocenceproject.org
you think these 3 men are going to have their lives ruined if by some slim chance these accusations are false? are you as concerned about the thousands and thousands of over turned convictions? the clear racial bias in people sentenced to death? where are you on those issues? could it be that you see these Duke students as more important, more human? is that the lens you want to see the world with? we white folks miss out on a lot of life when we choose to just not see the humanity of thousands of folks we share our towns with.
thanks to Aishah for being such an important feminist and anti-racist leader and clear thinker on all these complex issues. great interview.
about the debate on the duke lacrosse case. i want to agree with what many have said...none of us can know for sure unless we were there.
but CONTEXT is important. regardless of what we do or don't know about the duke case, we can know A LOT about our society. like that Black women are the most underpaid of all workers, by the factual, no-room-for-debate numbers. that we are just a few generations away from slavery in which folks like my white ancestors, women and men, were legally allowed to own black folks, women and men. and we know that under the system of slavery, black women were systematically raped by white men. its documented, look it up.
whatever did or didn't happen that night, we have an epedimic of instiutional Racism and Sexism in our society, by the numbers (education, incarceration, police murder, income, wealth, health access etc.). Racial and Gender disparities abound and are easily confirmed through a little internet research. we have a history of institutional Racism and Sexism. Not to mention capitalism, and class divisions.
the way this is playing out, who is inclined towards sympathy for who is not coincidence. there's a a history there, and there's lived experience. women and men see the world differently, Black folks, other folks of color and white folsk see the world differently, poor folks, middle class folks and rich folks too. all because of b/c of different lived experiences. i'm not saying all people of a certain group see things the same way, but there are some patterns based on experience.
to the folks (most of whom seem to be white men) who are screaming "innocent until proven guilty"....do you scream this loud on this issue when it is a Black man accused of rape? A Latina woman accused of robbbery? A Black girl accused of dealing drugs? If you truly believe so strongly in innocent until proven guilty, and a need for care and information gathering in court cases, are you out there advocating for the many Black and Brown folks incarcerated after speedy trials with shoddy lawyers? For the rising female prison population?
Its really interesting to watch what this whole incident has laid bare. I am sad to say that despite being white, I'm clearly out of touch with what many in my white community truly think about race, class and gender. we're at a sad, small, defensive place as a community. we got problems.
And last I want to say something a little shocking...if by some chance this is one of the very few cases of false accusation that statistically occur...so what? of course it would be terrible for the falsely accused....but in the current day there are MANY MANY folks "falsely imprisoned" ALL THE TIME. and MOST of them are NOT white men who go to elite universities. by the numbers, most of them are Black and Latino Men and Poor White Men...check out the Innoocence Project for more info www.innocenceproject.org
you think these 3 men are going to have their lives ruined if by some slim chance these accusations are false? are you as concerned about the thousands and thousands of over turned convictions? the clear racial bias in people sentenced to death? where are you on those issues? could it be that you see these Duke students as more important, more human? is that the lens you want to see the world with? we white folks miss out on a lot of life when we choose to just not see the humanity of thousands of folks we share our towns with.
"I think people who want to quibble on endlessly about the DNA technicalities, court processes, and dissect Nifong's handling of the case bit-by-bit are often doing so to avoid talking about the racism and misogyny they don't want to admit."
Uh, no ... perhaps they're talking about that because that, ultimately, is WHAT THE DUKE RAPE TRIAL IS ABOUT. It's annoying and somewhat disturbing to me to see people on both the left and the right projecting their own political agenda and ideology on a trial that should be about finding the truth about one single event.
On the right wing, we have people who are sick of what they see as blacks playing the victim, combined with a subdued disrespect for women in sex-related professions. On the left, we have a bunch of feminists and black activists who are prepared to lynch these boys simply for the crime of being relatively well-off white guys. (Admittedly, much of the information available doesn't make them look like angels - but that does not make them rapists any more than the woman's past makes her a liar.)
Saying this trial is about "white privilege" or about "black victimology" or whatever shows a basic disrespect for justice. The question, and the ONLY question, should be: Did THESE men rape THIS woman?
'And last I want to say something a little shocking...if by some chance this is one of the very few cases of false accusation that statistically occur...so what? of course it would be terrible for the falsely accused....but in the current day there are MANY MANY folks "falsely imprisoned" ALL THE TIME. and MOST of them are NOT white men who go to elite universities. by the numbers, most of them are Black and Latino Men and Poor White Men...check out the Innoocence Project for more info www.innocenceproject.org'
So, I'll paraphrase you: seeing well-off white guys falsely convicted is just fine and dandy - because a lot of minorities and poor people are falsely convicted too. I mean, these guys are RICH, so they don't really deserve a fair trial or any of that silliness, right?
Here's to hoping you never become a judge.
Sorry to annoy and disturb, but are you really so blinded by your own privilege that you do not see how arrogant it is that you claim the right to declare what this is all about? The fact that you see this case as if it is possible to separate it from it's social and historical context, is a sign of not only arrogance but also ignorance. It also shows that you know little about the criminal justice process and how it is also connected to the racism and misogyny that you (like those I was referring to when I wrote) are unwilling to address.
You wrote: "Saying this trial is about "white privilege" or about "black victimology" or whatever shows a basic disrespect for justice."
But really: saying this trial is not about "white privilege" or about "black victimology" or whatever shows a basic lack of knowledge about the justice system. Check your facts:
Don't believe me? How about Human Rights Watch? They have a nice little article on "Racism and the Administration of Justice" (http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/race/criminal_justice.htm)
Here's what they say:
Police target minorities as possible criminal suspects solely on the basis of their race or ethnicity.
Example: In a two year period in the U.S. state of Maryland, blacks constituted 79.2 percent of the drivers stopped and searched by the police on Interstate 95, even though they constituted only 17.5 percent of the drivers who were violating traffic laws.
There is an "extraordinary magnitude" of racial and gender disparity in incarceration rates within the US Criminal Justice system (http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/race/)
Example: In fifteen states, black women are incarcerated at rates between ten and thirty-five times greater than those of white women.
The war on drugs in the U.S. is waged overwhelmingly against black Americans.
Example: Although there are more white drug offenders than black in the United States, blacks constitute 62.7 percent of all drug offenders sent to state prison and black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 13.4 times the rate of white men.
Race influences death penalty decisions.
Example: A study of the federal death penalty by the U.S. Department of Justice released in September, 2000 found 80 percent of federal defendants who faced capital charges were members of racial minorities, as were 74 percent of convicted defendants for whom prosecutors recommended the death penalty.
Example: The death penalty is also more likely to be sought and imposed in the U.S. for killing a white person than a person of a different race: 82 percent of capital cases involve a white victim, although nationwide only 50% percent of homicide victims are white.
Sorry that you find mention of injustice and oppression so trying, try being black and a woman sometime...
Also, contrary to your simplistic way of thinking, there are not always "two sides to every story" that have equal merit: "white privilege" is a real thing as your post illustrates, whereas "black victimology" is an imaginary construct useful for neo-racist ("colorblind") rhetoric as your post also illustrates with wonderful clarity. It may shock you to know that there really is no "race card", and no one is "playing the victim" - there really is racism and part of that reality is the historic legacy of institutionalized rape of black women by white men. Part of this history includes the complicity of the criminal justice system, and if that system actually produces anything like Justice in this case it will be an exception rather than the norm.
If you think that the trial will answer your one and ONLY question "Did THESE men rape THIS woman?" you are one of the few who actually thinks this is a possibility. The criminal justice system was not even set up to answer this question - if it was we might find outcomes of guilt and "innocence" but really juries return verdicts of guilty or not guilty (the difference being reasonable doubt - not TRUTH).
You did get one thing right: Fighting racism and misogyny are both parts of my political agenda and ideology. They go right along with my respect for Justice.
hey - I tried to warn you about that backside....
"Sorry to annoy and disturb, but are you really so blinded by your own privilege that you do not see how arrogant it is that you claim the right to declare what this is all about? The fact that you see this case as if it is possible to separate it from it's social and historical context, is a sign of not only arrogance but also ignorance."
Pure nonsense. The Duke athletes will NOT be found guilty by reason of historical context in a court of law. If they are found guilty, it will be because they raped a woman. To prosecute them on any other grounds is making a mockery of the justice system. They are not on trial to be sacrified upon the altar of reparations for the past.
"But really: saying this trial is not about "white privilege" or about "black victimology" or whatever shows a basic lack of knowledge about the justice system."
Not a single thing you followed this up with proved your point; you simply go off on tangents about injustices doled out to defendants of different races. Yes - the justice system has maltreated individuals in the past. What of it? What does this SPECIFICALLY have to do with proving or disproving the guilt of these three men in this rape?
"Also, contrary to your simplistic way of thinking, there are not always "two sides to every story" that have equal merit"
Neither of the "sides" to this story have ANY merit. You - much like the right-wingers that are screaming about black victimology and "whores" - are imbuing a particular incident that has nothing, by itself, to do with politics, with partisan tones and using it as a political football. In a truly just system, the guilt or innocence of these men is not decided simply upon three hundred years of oppression against (insert minority group of choice here), but upon the validity of the evidence that they are guilty of the crime at hand.
If you want to go off and use this as an example of how The Man is keeping women, or black people, or sex workers, etc. down - fine, whatever. But none of that says anything about the validity of this woman's accusation.
"You did get one thing right: Fighting racism and misogyny are both parts of my political agenda and ideology. They go right along with my respect for Justice."
I'd like to believe that. But like many here, you largely seem concerned about "Justice" only when it concerns those you are politically sympathetic to.
One last response to honky girl from NC:
"to the folks (most of whom seem to be white men) who are screaming "innocent until proven guilty"....do you scream this loud on this issue when it is a Black man accused of rape? A Latina woman accused of robbbery? A Black girl accused of dealing drugs? If you truly believe so strongly in innocent until proven guilty, and a need for care and information gathering in court cases, are you out there advocating for the many Black and Brown folks incarcerated after speedy trials with shoddy lawyers? For the rising female prison population?"
I would consider ANY person of any gender or race being falsely convicted a shameful thing. I think it's shameful that DNA tests have exonerated many convicted killers. I fully acknowledge that there are disparities in the way justice is doled out.
And regardless, none of that makes me willing to dismiss a possible injustice merely because the recipient of it happens to be a couple of affluent white kids.
"You did get one thing right: Fighting racism and misogyny are both parts of my political agenda and ideology. They go right along with my respect for Justice.
hey - I tried to warn you about that backside....
You did get one thing right: Fighting racism and misogyny are both parts of my political agenda and ideology. They go right along with my respect for Justice."
Sorry, how is the legal system mysoginistic?
Out of curiosity, what does Ms. Simmons have to say about the case in Virginia where four black male students at Virginia Union (two of whom were football players) allegedly raped a white University of Richmond student?
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&%09s=1045855935174&c=MGArticle&cid=1137836062037&path=!news!columnists
3 ways the criminal justice system is misogynist:
1. Women's prisons have male guards. Women prisoners have to shower, change clothes and go to the bathroom in front of male guards, who feel free to make harassing comments at the least. The UN believes this violates the prisoners' human rights. It leads to rape and pregnancy. I believe there can be no consensual sex between guards and prisoners, because of the inequality of power. [Even if the woman initiates it--the man has a gun, he has ultimate power over her. Maybe she thinks it's what she has to do to survive. No decent person would take advantage of her.] Women's prisons even sell birth control to the women so they won't get pregnant from the guards.
The worst irony is that this is part of the backlash against feminism. There used to be only women guards for women, but when women won the right to work wherever men do, prisons decided turnabout was fair play and to hell with prisoners' rights.
2.The police code for a dead prostitute is: "0" yes "Zero." As in, worthless. As in, don't waste your effort trying to find the killer, because it's just a hooker. Prostitutes have a very high homicide rate, partly because their killers know the police won't bother catching them.
3. Domestic violence is a special category, with lower penalties than assaults committed by strangers. It is not taken seriously by the police, even though it ruins the victims' lives and can lead to death. Last week I called 911 because the woman next door was being beaten. The cops knocked on the door. There was no reply, so they just left. She could've been dead for all they knew. [She survived.]
That's just off the top of my head. I've never been arrested, but I've seen nonviolent women manhandled by police officers for fun. I've seen the injuries afterwards. I've escorted sex crime victims to the police station, where they were treated worse than criminals and dissuaded from pressing charges. In my experience the male victims were treated marginally better than the female. At every step of the way, there is enormous pressure to drop charges. While it is a terrible thing to be falsely accused, being raped is far worse.
jt -
"Pure nonsense. The Duke athletes will NOT be found guilty by reason of historical context in a court of law. If they are found guilty, it will be because they raped a woman. To prosecute them on any other grounds is making a mockery of the justice system. They are not on trial to be sacrified upon the altar of reparations for the past."
Funny that you have chosen to attack an argument I never made. I never said that anything other than the facts at hand should be considered, actually I would love it if that was what happened. The justice system doesn't need me to make a mockery of it - all of the examples I offered prove that it makes a mockery of itself when the "justice system" operates in such obviously unjust ways. Nobody wants sacrifices or reparations, and I never said anything like that - my hope would be for justice, but my point was that I won't be holding my breath....
"Yes - the justice system has maltreated individuals in the past. What of it? What does this SPECIFICALLY have to do with proving or disproving the guilt of these three men in this rape? "
Since you acknowledge that the justice system has had a pattern of racial bias, why do you need me to spell this out for you? Are you operating under some fantasy that IN THIS ONE INSTANCE it will somehow not be racist, classist , and misogynistic? What would make you willing to make that leap of faith? Is it because the justice you are after is the one that exonerates white men? You'll probably be pleased then, because given the quality of legal representation that money and power has afforded these men they have a great shot at generating reasonable doubt - they have been very successful at doing so in the court of public opinion as your comments demonstrate.
"In a truly just system, the guilt or innocence of these men is not decided simply upon three hundred years of oppression against (insert minority group of choice here), but upon the validity of the evidence that they are guilty of the crime at hand."
Since you apparently missed it the first time, my point was we don't have a TRULY JUST system. If we did, I wouldn't have a list of injustices and examples to back them up.
"none of that says anything about the validity of this woman's accusation"
I wasn't trying to say anything about the validity of the accusation, I was addressing the system that is charged with evaluating that accusation and shedding some light on the fact that it is poorly equipped to evaluate anything because it is (and has been) biased against women, people of color, and basically anyone that is not white, male, heterosexual, and wealthy. However, I believe her.
You wrote to NC Honky Girl saying: "I would consider ANY person of any gender or race being falsely convicted a shameful thing. I think it's shameful that DNA tests have exonerated many convicted killers. I fully acknowledge that there are disparities in the way justice is doled out."
But the real question is, how many website tirades have you been on about these disparities? Are you fighting for justice for anyone but rich white guys? And doesn't that make you the one that's actually guilty of only speaking up for those you are politically sympathetic to (and probably only for those that look like you)?
"Neither of the "sides" to this story have ANY merit."
I think this is your real point. You don't believe in racism, or at least you don't believe that it has already been a factor in this case. This is where you are most ignorant and arrogant. Did the fact that they verbally assaulted these women with racist epithets slip right by you? Do you not recognize that assumptions about her credibility made by police took her race into consideration (and, yes there are statistics demonstrating that police are more responsive to white people, men, and upper class when they report crimes - but since you are incapable of understanding how these things relate I'll save my time on that one)? The racial bias of this case is not some "political football", it is part of the process and to not acknowledge that is like sticking your head in the sand - with your backside hanging out for all to see.
"I wasn't trying to say anything about the validity of the accusation"
Fine, perhaps I misunderstood your argument. When you complained about people "quibbling" over the actual facts of the case, the apparent implication of this was that the facts of the case were irrelevant as compared to racism/misogyny. My argument is simply that one shouldn't bring one's preconditions about race when judging the guilt or innocence here.
And regarding my "website tirades" - well, actually, I have been elsewhere, bitching about how a bunch of guys convinced that she's a liar are prematurely handing out a verdict. If I'm complaining loudly about these white kids here, it's largely because it's depressing to see people who are supposedly committed to justice for ALL making comments such as "if by some chance this is one of the very few cases of false accusation that statistically occur...so what?" - as if injustice is only a big deal when it afflicts women or a minority group. By contrast, I fully expect right-wingers to be inconsistent in their sympathies.
What happened to Femminism? I used to think it's underlying theme was humanistic. Thanks for helping to divide us even further.
What happened to Femminism? I used to think it's underlying theme was humanistic. Thanks for helping to divide us even further.
The truth as to what happened will reveal itself in the fullness of time but I am sure we will all agree that the entire story is one of the most sordid ever.
And one of the most tragic for all concerned.
We have to encourage these boys, no matter how embarrasing, must pursue charges against false claims of rape.
Too many boys are too relieved that they were found innocent of a false rape claim that they don't pursue justice from the false accuser.
Women who make false claims of rape hurt more than the unfortunate victims they accuse, they hurt real victims of rape.
CAn this person who calls himself betty fridan stop posting really long stupid comments? I think he should be reading a white supramcist/male chauvinist website rather than Feministing.
CAn this person who calls himself betty fridan stop posting really long stupid comments? I think he should be reading a white supramcist/male chauvinist website rather than Feministing.
So, because Betty Friedan posts links to evidence that suggests the Duke Lacrosse Players are not guilty, that makes them a racist/sexist?
STRAWMAN!
sojourn - If you don't want to read about the Duke rape case, don’t click on a Duke rape case thread. I am not the one posting here (Betty Friedan), but I have been doing something similar on the “This Sounds Familiar� thread. Why?
1. Because the case fascinates me.
2. Because I don’t want to let you all sweep this mis-adventure under the rug as the case falls apart. These players were accused publicly, and, if they are innocent, I intend to do my part in publicizing their exoneration
BTW, have you read the latest motion? What do you think?