The thought process which sparked the debate on the article:
I wanted to develop a sense of misfit solidarity with your story and overlook some of the glaring, flaming triggers that kept ticking off to me, but I can’t. Today is the anniversary of the “I have a dream speech”, a day when we can remember the grave injustice that has been dealt to people of color. Reading your story reminds me of all of the black men who were tortured and killed because of what white women said, true or not.
Your story has branded a black man as a rapist. Let me first say that I do not agree with him removing your garments. Despite your description of yourself as an innocent, victim woman-child nowhere do you give an account of how he may have viewed you. He have no memory of the set-up which led to you being in a hotel room with two beds and two men. Your friend was apparently having sex with a guy in one of them, but to protect her virtue you refer to the other guy as her “boyfriend” and do not mention that she was probably having sex with her “boyfriend” in the same room all of you shared. At the same time you cast yourself into an angelic ray of goodness and light where you just happened to end up in this seedy motel with your white misfit friend, the under-aged stripper, who “talked black,” and two black men. The only nice thing that you have to say is that one of them paid for the room. Perhaps you and your friend were also paid for that night? Who is to say because you don’t remember anything.
I don’t disagree that you had a very real fear and that he was naked in bed with you, or that your shorts were pulled down and you did resist his advances in your own way. What I do see is that the moment you opened your mouth and uttered your own cry for help, as you call it, he stopped. He did not follow you to the bathroom or stop you from going. You were released and even allowed to end up back in the vehicle despite your positioning of being furthest from the door. Once he came out to the vehicle with you it seems as if he did not attempt to touch you again. You even rode home in the back seat of the vehicle together and make no mention of this “shark” going for you again.
I speak from the point of someone who has been raped by an acquaintance. There was no assumption on my part that he would have raped me or that he might have been a rapist. His actual actions were that of a rapist. My circumstances were similar,except my cries for help went unanswered, he did not back down to allow my escape. He IS an actual rapist by action, not assumption.
You have branded a black man a rapist by assumption of actions that did not happen. Once again I must state that I do not agree with his removal of your clothing, nor do I feel that you weren’t in some way violated. I believe that your clothing was removed without your explicit consent. However I don’t believe that they were removed against your will. The moment you made your will known, to go to the bathroom, you weren’t detained. It may not have been the shrill “NO!” that is demonstrated in theatres, but it was your way of seeing if you would be allowed the opportunity for egress - and you were free to go.
While you say you would have been raped if you two were alone that brings into play a whole new set of questions. Why would you be alone in a room with a man that you don’t know? That isn’t even a scenario that makes sense based on the events that you’ve recounted. It’s just something that you’ve introduced to bolster your assumptions that this black man was a would-be rapist.
This is very long and I’m going to wrap it up. You’ve taken your characterization of yourself as a victim too far in my opinion. You’ve made yourself into the helpless little white riding hood that almost fell victim to this big black wolf. You’ve denigrated that man’s character and called him a rapist despite the evidence to the contrary. What’s worse is that you did it in order to reinforce this persona of innocence that you’re portraying of yourself. The most horrid thing of all is that you probably don’t even realize what you’ve done, how much of a cliché it is, and how easily your assumptions and assertions would have gotten that man killed just a few short years ago. You are not the first white woman to cry wolf. Hopefully this time the wolf won’t be strung up in a tree and tortured for the benefit of the white townsfolk’s hunger for vengeance and to protect the virtue of yet another little white (chick) riding (in the black) hood.
I’m not even going to edit this. I would be happy to discuss it further if that’s what it takes to get to a level mutual understanding. Maybe we can all gain some clarity out of this. Blessings.
NOTE: It has since been revealed that the author of the original article is bi-racial.
Now what do you think?
