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Who will Defend the Black Woman - and girl?
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thandisizwe chimurenga
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Feb 05, 2007 17:45 PST
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Who will Defend the Black Woman - and girl?
Thandisizwe Chimurenga
On April 19, 1989, a young white woman who had been jogging through New
York City's Central Park was attacked, beaten bloody, raped and left for
dead. Five young men of color would eventually be arrested, framed and
imprisoned for this crime, and then exonerated some 14 years later.
On May 1,1989, Donald Trump, real estate developer and multi-millionaire
paid $85,000 for four full page ads that ran in the New York Newsday, Daily
News, Post and Times newspapers, calling for New York State to "bring back
the death penalty."
In December of last year, the NY Daily News reported that the current Miss
USA had . shall we say . acted in a manner unbecoming of a Miss USA. While
the media began reporting widely that she would be dethroned for her
behavior Donald Trump, as the main shot-caller of the Miss USA pageant
allowed her to keep her crown. "I've always been a believer in second
chances," he said.
Is 'The Donald' a true believer in second chances? Perhaps, but more
importantly, 'The Donald' is a white man who knows what one of his roles is
on this planet: Vindicate white womanhood.
The Honorable Gibson Lee, a Long Beach Superior Court Judge, knows his
role too: Vindicate white womanhood.
And it is in this role that he found nine youths, one boy and eight girls,
guilty of the felony assault of three young white women in Long Beach. Hate
crime allegations were also found to be true against eight of the youths.
The three women were attacked on Halloween Night last year in a most
vicious manner. A mob of people primarily kicked the victims while they were
on the ground. One victim had several facial fractures and will need
reconstructive surgery. All three of the women will have emotional scars for
a very long time, if not forever.
This is a crime that cried out for justice; no one in their right mind
disputes that. What is disputed is exactly who committed this crime? Calls
to 911 reported Black males as the culprits, and so with good reason, the
Black community wondered why nine Black girls were the ones being held?
One parent maintained from the beginning that her daughter "could not have
been involved" because she was sitting in a car talking on her cell phone at
the time the incident happened, and that records of the cell phone would
bear that out.
So-called eyewitness identification of the youths was actually found to
have been a look in a rear view mirror from a few hundred feet away.
Evidence of a victim's blood was said to be on the pants of one of the
girls; that blood evidence was also said to be barely visible to the human
eye; in other words, as opposed to the pants being smeared with blood (since
this was a violent and bloody assault) the blood was in a splatter pattern,
as in what happens when a car goes through a puddle and you're standing on
the sidewalk. Smeared or splattered, this blood evidence was ruled
inadmissible by the judge and should therefore never, ever be mentioned
again.
Had these children been adults on trial a jury of their peers would have
acquitted them because a reasonable doubt of their guilt surely exists.
And so, it was with utter shock that I listened to a press conference by
Najee Ali, Director of Project Islamic HOPE last Wednesday in front of the
Long Beach Court House. Ali opened the press conference by stating, "On
behalf of our organization, we are calling upon the parents of the
defendants and the defendants themselves to issue and give a public apology
to the victims in the Halloween beating case. . they should accept
responsibility for their actions, it only will get worse if they keep being
angry and bitter, and keep being in a state of denial. The facts are, they
were convicted ..."
As if that wasn't enough, Ali went on to state, "Certainly, if these young
women, If I felt they were victimized and being mistreated and railroaded,
as one of the city's leading black activists for the last 10 years, I would
have been the first one out here protesting and making sure that justice was
not denied to them. In this case, I take a different position. The facts are
in, and certainly I think it's important that we, as African American
leaders, be the voice of reason, in this particular case."
When I first heard this, a whole buncha words came to mind - unmitigated
gall, self-aggrandizing, opportunistic, hypocritical, insensitive. After
about 5 minutes of that, the most simplest words that came to mind were the
most powerful for me: he wrong for that.
As a Black man in America, Ali should know best of all that conviction for
a crime does not mean guilt of a crime. But then again, it's not like Ali
is acting out of character in regards to this case. After all, it was Najee
Ali who called a press conference on the steps of the Long Beach Court House
calling for support for the three victims and a march to denounce violence.
Am I saying that these women should not have been supported, or that a
denunciation of violence and a march against it are not necessary? Of
course not. What I am saying is that calling for such things on the Long
Beach Courthouse steps as these children were on trial was an explicit
linking of them to the crime and a condemnation of them. I said as much to
Najee Ali personally at a later date. His response was that he meant it to
be a way for the family to have a platform to also denounce the violence and
link them with the victims, but it is obvious to this Black woman that such
was not the case.
The case of the Long Beach 10 has been rife with opportunism from the very
beginning, from one activist who should have known better writing that Black
folks commit hate crimes against white folks too, to another one who had no
business whatsoever in front of a microphone spouting misstatements of law,
to the mess conference called by Ali last week. These youths are the latest
casualties in the war of the media-addicted.
Within the last 12 months we saw a United States Congresswoman called a
"ghetto slut;" and a college student and mother of two who walked into a
Duke University Lacrosse team's party working as an exotic dancer called
everything but troubled (which she obviously is). Now with Ali's mess
conference added to the list, it has proved for me what I already knew but
didn't want to say out loud: Black men also vindicate white womanhood.
Abbey Lincoln, the singer and actress asked some very poignant questions
way back in 1966. Her questions are as relevant today as they ever were:
"Who will revere the Black woman? Who will assuage her indignation? Who
will keep our neighborhoods safe for Black innocent womanhood?"
Who?
It's a good thing I've got asthma . I won't be holding my breath .
Thandisizwe Chimurenga is a writer, activist, and the director of the
Ida B. Wells Institute.
She can be reached at idabwells-@gmail.com
--
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http://idabwellsinstitute.blogspot.com
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