Category: DB10

While watching the “Out in the night” film it made me very emotional. Hearing how these 4 women had their story flipped like that was crazy. And it was at a point that with all the news articles, and media coverage that was covering this story how quick they were to blame these women. How quick they were to put those women in boxes and label them as “animals” all for defending themselves. Even with all the evidence presented they were unfortunately convicted with extreme sentences. Ya know when I say this I don’t mean this to sound bad but its true, its scary being a woman sometimes. Being in fear to walk to the park, school, home, just about anywhere and worrying if you’re going to be attacked or something just because you’re a women. And that’s what got me upset with these women who were the actual victims in this case, how they became the attackers. These 4 women were called “lesbians, b!tches, wolves, gang members, etc. All of these horrible things were said about them even though they were the VICTIMS. But of course the story of man attacks lesbians wouldn’t garner the medias attention the way the way their story did. Cause women should just give in right? they should just be called disgusting thing by men who think they have power of them, by men who can’t bear rejection right? This was really upsetting. And hearing about other events that occurred after this like a rise of homophobic attacks were happening. This story touched on how oppression to black women, homosexuals, is often taken lightly when attacks are done upon them, but when they defend themselves now they are the “animals”. These things just really don’t make sense to me, and its really sad. like honestly and truly its sad that these thing occurred and are still occurring, that people are hurt physically and emotionally for being who they are.

In the seven years since the CR-INCITE! Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex first came out in 2001, a number of local and national groups and organizations have heeded its call and worked creatively and collectively toward making its vision a reality. It is important that after twenty year INCITE was created as a national radical feminist of color organization, here to help and protect people with interpersonal and state violence. I did a research and it says, “Abolition feminism is a liberatory visión of a world free from all forms of violence including gender violence and the violence of police and prisons.” This is important for everyone because it is important to society to feel safe and be protected. Living without violence. 

Based on the film(s) you watched, what do the victim-survivors say about their experience and how are their stories received– by their family/friends/colleagues, the legal system, the media?

Based on the film I watched, the ted talk. A women was discussing an experience another African American female had faced when trying to get a job. A lot of African American females became victimized based on their gender and race. Multiple jobs were discriminating African American females.

A women named Emma degraffenried decided to take a complaint to court about how she was being mistreated, discriminated by a job because she was a black women. She felt that the job that she was applying for did allow her to work because of her race and gender. when explaining her feelings to judge, he disrespectfully dismissed her case. He stated that the job does not discriminate because they let black people and females work there. what the judge stated is true but what he didn’t explain was the genders. Yes black people worked but it was black men, yes females worked but it was white females. The gender and race were separated. instead of Emma degraffenried being a white women, she is a black women wanting to work, so they didn’t want her working with them. That is discrimination.

I watched Anita: Speaking Truth to Power this week. Anita Hill’s treatment in 1991 was a fitting example of how Crenshaw’s Ted Talk describes intersectionality doubly harming someone experiencing two or more forms of marginalization.

Clarence Thomas was able to claim that his being on trial for workplace sexual harassment was a “high-tech lynching”, and an example of racism against him. If that were true, wouldn’t the same be true for how Hill was treated? Was she not black too, and having her character put on trial by a panel of white men, having her reputation compromised by a vindictive media, all because she anonymously told the truth when confronted?

She had to leave a job she loved because of rampant harassment, and years later, only when asked, provided an honest account of her working relationship with Thomas as being rife with inappropriate behavior that caused her to leave. She reported this anonymously, and yet was singled out, her name leaked. It was clear she never wanted to be called forward, especially in such a negative and public way.  Through the hearing, Anita remained unflappable and poised, but you can see how much the pervasive, graphic and probing questions weighed on her to vocalize repeatedly

But that was not the way she was treated, by a panel of white men who made it seem as though she had “come forward” with this information, and with questionable intent, treating her as if she were on trial, not Thomas. It is gut-wrenching to see them actually accuse her of being a “woman scorned”. This was all while colleagues, family, and friends of hers readily came forward to testify on behalf of her respectable character. Many of those who stood up for her even backed her claims with viable evidence – testifying that she had come to them in confidence and named the harassment as it was happening those 7 years ago. It makes you wonder, would this particular panel have treated her so horribly if she had been a white woman who had such clearly upstanding character?

It is amazing that wasn’t enough, but as we see, Clarence was able to dismiss the notion that a black man could be legitimately accused of harassment, even if this accusation was being made by another black person, the media ran with smearing Anita, and the legal system acted as though she had done something wrong in ways thick with undertones of racial stereotyping. Anita hill was at a crossroads of intersectionality that attacked her from multiple directions.

But what was worse was what happened after. Not only was Thomas’s nomination upheld, not only was he sworn into the Supreme Courts where he still sits, but powerful people had the nerve to actually retaliate against Hill for coming forward, trying to attack her job, and when unsuccessful, trying to attack the dean of her college and even the department she taught in altogether. This to me, is even more emblematic of the deep-rooted vitriol against speaking truth to power, she didn’t just get her name smeared in the courts and by the media, no, that wasn’t enough, they went after her afterward to send a message. It is such a testament to her strength that she has continued to speak out through the years.

I wonder how we as a society can so easily collectively forget how we treat women who come forward with harassment in the legal system, faulting them for not coming forward when they are harassed in the workplace, when we know that means running the risk of ruining their careers to name the harassment or press charges.

I wonder how many cases this precedent with Thomas wound up impacting, giving workplace harassment cases less power in the courts for less visible cases, and that leads me to wonder if any such prescient has actually been moved or impacted by the MeToo movement since 2016.