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Cosby, Rape Culture, and Black Women

My oh my. Anyone who's been following the news has probably heard about the Bill Cosby scandal.

The responses seem to have gone everywhere. From celebrities demanding proof, to the accusations being called a threat to the Black family, the situation has shown a side of rape culture within our own Black culture. And thus, we look at a group of people who are the most visible and invisible at the same time.

Black women. So let's talk about it. Black women are our mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, coworkers, friends, strangers, acquaintances. Every Black person knows a Black woman. Yet, we are perfectly fine with telling them their trauma, their feelings don't matter.We need proof of their rape as if we're going to grab some rubber gloves and investigate their vaginas ourselves. 

Again, black women are the most visible and invisible at the same time. Everyone seems to either want one, or want to be one. Gay white men seem to have one inside of them (oh yasss, sassy diva, girl!). Black men either desire them, or desire other women with Black features. White men love Black women as well, which is how mixed race babies were born during the slavery era. (Read my review of Wench, by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, relating to slave women)

It's absolutely gross and disgusting how we gather to discredit the words of forty women. What do we tell the other women who are too scared to speak about their rape? What do you tell your daughter who may have been assaulted by her boyfriend after a movie night at his house? What do you tell your daughter who was inappropriately looked at by her teacher, too scared to confront administration? 

Rape culture and celebrity idolization is strange. We put people – from football players and musicians to great respectable fathers – on pedestals, and excuse them from their wrongdoings. It's time to hold people accountable to what they do. What Bill Cosby did wasn't just wrong. It was horrific, dehumanizing, and hypocritical.

There's no reason to apologize for the predatory poundcake-eating figure hailed as America's Black father. He's lived a comfortable life eating for free at Ben's Chili Bowl, enjoying his successes and his shine. We need to apologize to the women we've hurt and failed, who we've told aren't valuable. 

tags: bill cosby, women, black women, rape culture, rape, thoughts, opinions, black womens lives matters
Tuesday 07.07.15
Posted by Jeremy Collins
 

Reading Part One of "Wench" at Work and the Fear of White Men

Reading Part One

As I think about this past weekend with Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, I think about my experience as a Black man today in America, and I have to just sigh. Professor Verdelle, whose class I'm reading the book for, always tells us to keep in mind that fiction is just that – fiction. But as I read Wench I forget that, and the story just depresses and depresses and depresses until I'm sitting in a mall, waiting to punch the clock at work, face full of enough despair to fuel sixty-five Drake albums. 

Wench is the stories of four slave women - Lizzie, Mawu, Reenie, and Sweet - as they spend their summers at Tawawa House, a resort in Ohio, one of the freed states. Each woman has their kinks and curves in their personalities, but they're sisterhood is something amazing. They're in it for thick and thin.

The storytelling in the book is magnificent and the elements of the story are so captivating. I find myself rooting for all the girls; however, at this point, I feel an extreme disdain for Lizzie. While I understand her condition, I hate the betrayal to the women. But! I must stop with the victim blaming, because the true monsters of the story are the slavemasters themselves. The ways they physically, psychologically, sexually, and emotionally abuse them were insidious. The hate I had for them consumed me, and it reflected in my attitude towards the white men I helped today. While I composed myself professionally, I imagined many of them as the slaveholders. When I picked the book up, going on my lunch break, the connection made reading even worse. There was an older man in particular who came to ask about the Microsoft Band. I'd just come back from break, and wasn't fully recovered. Thinking about the story of Drayle's two sons, I wondered how so much evil could rest in a single person, let alone a group of them!

 

The Lone Chocolate Chip

The book stayed on my mind throughout the rest of my shift. It was around 8:20PM and I started a search, just to see the demographics on the board of directors at many popular stores in the mall. A strong proponent of small and black-owned businesses, I looked at Microsoft, Urban Outfitters, Nike, Apple, and a few other places. Cocoa-colored folks weren't abundant in my findings, and I just wanted to sigh. Meanwhile, cocoa-colored folks, mostly young teenagers (13-16) were spending money at these companies. 

Yes, Jeremy, white men still rule the world. 

tags: wench, reading, blackness, dolen, dolen perkins-valdez, literature, slavery, women
Saturday 04.11.15
Posted by Jeremy Collins
Comments: 1