KEEPING OUR PERSPECTIVE

KEEPING OUR PERSPECTIVE
Family Reunion by Laverne Ross

Thursday, June 26, 2008

WILL THE SAVAGERY AGAINST BLACK WOMEN EVER END?

I was in the midst of a little mini vacation after school ended this past monday. I was tired and simply had to take a leave of absence from my blogging duties to take care of some personal business. I get back on and I recieve an email from Sister shecodes that quickly snapped me back to reality.

She detailed an attack on a Black woman who was then subsequently gang raped by several Black males. More beasts in the guise of Black males. Does this sound familiar? The case of finding the six other beasts who raped the woman in Dunbar village have not been found and the case barely has registered a blip on the Black media. Unlike the Black Enslavement Television Awards that was held this week. You coulden't go anywhere without seeing the ads for that calvacade of crap. Now there is a similar attack of pure evil against a Black woman. This has got to stop! We have to come together and come up with stategies to prevent such atrocities from happening. We have to blitz the media to cover these stories and put a spotlight on them. We must put a fire under the well cushioned butts of "out leaders" and organizations, and yes I do include good ol' Rev. Al and others of his ilk. I am planning now to bombard every Black newspaper, radio show, T.V. show and other media outlets of this. This time I will not stop.

Here is an account of this latest atrocity from Black Women Vote!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Another gang attack of a black woman while neighbors ignore screams

One year after the Dunbar Village incident has passed. No progress has been made.Yesterday, in Philadelphia, a black woman was forced into her apartment and raped for four hours by several men. According to ABC news, quite a few neighbors said that they heard this sister's screams, but 'didn't think to call the police'. A female neighbor heard her screams and said and I quote: "I heard her screaming , 'Oh my God! Oh my goodness! Oh my God!'... Then I didn't pay attention and laid back down."

The first rapist (who forced the victim into her apartment when she tried to pass him in the hallway) was so confident that her neighbors would not do anything, that he called two of his friends to come over to join his rape party. They happily and viciously accepted the invitation.The victim had to walk a mile to the police station herself. Does that sound familiar?A similar incident had happened a few blocks away shortly before.Read the whole story here.

As many of you know, the violent gang rape/torture that we call The Dunbar Village Incident was the final straw that turned many of us into black female activists. Most of us immediately recognized that heinous crime as an ominous harbinger of things to come.I still remember the day that I heard about it -- I was in Washington DC at a Congressional Hearing entitled "From Imus to Industry", which pretended to investigate the denigrating and stereotypical imagery of (black) women in media. I was sitting next to Gina McCauley from What About our Daughters when she told me the horrific story during a brief recess. We had just finished sitting through hours of white male media execs and black male entertainers as they piously and vigorously defending their 'right' to denigrate, demean, and lyrically rape and abuse black women.

At that point, I knew that I could no longer hide in the shadows; I would have to step forward and forcefully speak up for Black women and girls.When we review the historical background of societies that regularly mutilate and destroy women, we learn that these horrors occur over time: in an escalating progression, with obvious markers and signifiers -- and many chances to change course.The way to mass atrocity is always paved with disregard to the pain of others and a willful disbelief of how widespread the problem is. The inroad to open and mass violence against black American women is being been paved right before our eyes... and some of the pavers are other black women.When a black woman can actually lie down and take a nap while listening to the screams of a another black woman being gang raped, the way has been paved.
We all KNOW that something is seriously askew when black women jump and shout for joy when an obvious sexual predator of black girls is found 'not guilty'.

Let's get out our tools and start tearing up this road, before it's too late.

2 comments:

Kit (Keep It Trill) said...

Thanks for the links in the story, Mr. Shadow. I read the links in those news articles too. As a social worker and mental health therapist, I have so many diverging thoughts about what occurred and why at Dunbar Village.

Initially I was thinking along the lines of how the larger society has raped black communities for decades by depriving them of basic things from social, educational, medical and mental health and drug treatment services, to jobs and even the right to have their votes counted in the last Presidential election.

All of this is true, but something larger is at work.

Young white adult male soldiers and 'contract workers' did no less and even worse to the Iraqis they tortured, sodomized, and castrated at Abu Ghraib and other places. They came up in middle and working class White America, minus many of the problems we have yet behaved - and I'll betcha are still behaving - like barbarians.

The big question is why?

One answer I can offer: The combination of unrelenting and unbearable stress from any kind of warzone, combined with sexism and/or racism, makes some people behave in insane, inhumane, and/or cruel ways.

After reading about the families of these boys and lifetime living conditions, I think this is what happened. For this I lay the blame at racist social policies which have raped us first. These kids are only a microcosm of their environment.

Does this excuse their savagery? No. But it helps put it in perspective, and develop a plan to prevent future cases. This would require agreement by those who control the budgets.

Fat chance of this happening.

Otherwise, nice finding your blog. Take care,

~ Kit

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hello there...

There are many factors that will explain the savagery and callousness...

Black women are disposable in this society...and if anyone thinks otherwise, their eyes are not open...

There was a time when men would rush to aid any woman in distress....those days are long gone...and now even black women will turn from the cries of a sista??! Unspeakable....unspeakable...

Thanks for this post.

Keep blowing the trumpet!
Lisa