New Heat

My laptop died, taking the next tape with it. Oh well. This is what has been in the rotation recently. All of these have bangers.


Fabolous - There is no Competition 2



Remember this guy? He came back with flames. Drag-On - The Crazies


Young Jeezy - All Black Everything


Young Buck - Dishonorable Discharge

Doin Da Butt

I am a big fan of women wearing spandex pants out as "real" pants. This needs to happen more often as it makes their butt look extra defined.

Prove Me Wrong.
Stikman.

Stimulus Package Success?

I've heard arguments saying, in effect, of course the GDP would go up if the government puts almost $800 billion into the economy. So I looked up how much money the government has actually put into the economy so far through the Recovery Act. Revovery.gov indicates about $57 billion has been sent out. That is way less than I expected. Since some recipients might spend the money before they actually receive it, we can use the high extreme of total funds awarded, or $197 billion.

In real dollars, the GDP increased $91 billion in the 3rd quarter and $221 billion in the 4th quarter.

This graph shows quarter to quarter GDP growth trending down from 1st quarter 2008 to 2nd quarter 2009, and going up coinciding with the stimulus package. Post hoc aside, it appears the economy grew more than the amount spent through the Recovery Act. After a year of negative growth, I'm tentatively convinced that the stimulus package achieved positive results if GDP is an accurate metric. I feel this way because consumer confidence is so vital to the economy. A growing GDP spurs confidence, which I think outweighs future debt concerns (I do not mean all debt concerns; I am only talking about the ramifications of this particular stimulus spending). Consumer confidence was at an all time low (since 1967) in February 09 at 25. It is now at 56. While it is foolish to confidently proclaim success for such a large program this early, it appears to be working.

Beat. Down. Vol. 1

Because you can have bass without rap. This is a dubstep/house/ambient type tape. Turn the lights off and the bass up.

1 - Zero 7 - Ghost sYMbOL
2 - Moderat - Nr. 22
3 - Kryptic Minds - Stepping Stone
4 - Burial - Wounder
5 - Joker and Ginz - Purple City
6 - Mia - So I Felt
7 - Posture for Posterity - It was a Nightmare
8 - Puscifer- Indigo Children (JLE dub mix)
9 - DJ Rupture - Homeboys (Feat. Max Normal)
10 - Flying Lotus - Camel
11 - 2562 - Lost
12 - King Midas Sound - Earth a Kill ya
13 - Peaches - Take You On
14 - Annie - Always Too Late
15 - Apparat - Holdon
16 - Alias & Tarsier - Ligaya
17 - Clint Mansell - Tree Of Life

The Systems of Race as Structural Inequality

Effects have causes. Since man became human, we have relied on cause and effect. A village elder eats an unidentified plant and dies two days later. A heavy rain precedes the flooding of the river. Consistently watering a plant produces larger fruit. After time, one can take note of certain actions and rely upon them for certain effects. But what happens when we add multiple causes and see one effect? Say on a windy day we place a ball on a slope. We know the effect; the ball rolls down the hill. But what is the cause? Was it the slope or the wind? Perhaps it was a combination of both causes. Fortunately, modern physics has equations where we can figure out exactly the causes based on the slope of the hill, speed of the wind and mass of the ball. This same mode of analysis is good for any Newtonian phenomenon. As long as we know all of the individual characteristics in a closed system, we can figure out the causes to certain effects. This paper will explore the idea that human thought is not Newtonian in nature, and is instead far more complicated in ascertaining the causes behind effects. It will apply a new mode of thinking, called systems thinking, in attempting to explain existing racial problems in society. It will then apply this new method of thinking to the body of law and comment on present jurisprudence.

CAUSALITY

Since the beginning of time, people have pondered causality. Aristotle was perhaps the first to offer a theory of causality regarding human action. He suggested that we only have knowledge of a thing when we have grasped its cause. His theory rested on what he considered the “four causes”. These were four things that could be applied to any why question – the material cause (that out of which), the formal cause (the form), the efficient cause (the primary source of the change or rest) and the final cause (the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done).

These four causes may combine with each other in order to provide an explanation for something. Fox example, imagine a car. How was this produced? The material cause is the aluminum that went into making the chassis. But aluminum is not only the material that went into manufacturing the car; it is also the material that is subject to change, in that it is what was changed in order to manufacture the car. Aluminum started as a deposit in the earth, which was then molded into the shape of a car frame. The formal cause of the production of the car is therefore the shape of the frame. To fully explain the production of the car, one must explore the efficient cause, or the principle that produced the car. A simplistic look into what principle produced the car would be the person on the assembly line. But to Aristotle, this principle is the art of car-making. While the laborer is the principle that actually makes the car, to Aristotle, all the laborer does in making the car is manifest a specific knowledge. So it is this specific knowledge that one should consider the efficient cause.

By picking the art, not the laborer, Aristotle is not just trying to provide an explanation of the production of the car that is not dependent upon the desires, beliefs and intentions of the individual laborer; he is trying to offer an entirely different type of explanation; an explanation that does not make a reference, implicit or explicit, to these desires, beliefs and intentions. In other words, the art of car-making is the efficient cause because it helps to understand what steps are required to produce the car. This is not the final step, as one must look at the final outcome of the production of the car. This teleological approach views each step of the car-making process as one performed in order to produce the car. Therefore the end product of a car existed at each step of the car-making process. Aristotle applied this theory to phenomena in nature, including human action. It is worth noting his ideas of causality did not depend on temporal classification. Classifications of before and after were not part of his analysis.

Aristotelian causality was not the only school of thought. Physicist Max Born summed up the thoughts that dominated the Newtonian physicists’ ideas of causality in 1949 :

1) Causality postulates that there are laws by which the occurrence of an entity B of a certain class depends on the occurrence of an entity A of another class, where the word entity means any physical object, phenomenon, situation, or event. A is called the cause, B the effect.
2) Antecedence postulates that the cause must be prior to, or at least simultaneous with, the effect.
3) Contiguity postulates that cause and effect must be in spatial contact or connected by a chain of intermediate things in contact.

This way of thought differs from Aristotelian causality in that it uses time as a factor. A is not a cause unless it occurs before or simultaneously with effect B. Humans use this way of thinking almost universally in the way we interact with the world. It is a linear way of looking at our environment, where A causes B. A person pulls the trigger of a gun. The hammer strikes a bullet. The gunpowder ignites. The bullet leaves the muzzle at a high velocity. The bullet strikes the target. Humans have come to rely on this linear chain of actions. We never expect the bullet to hit the target before we pull the trigger. We can use reduction to break the act of shooting a target down to its individual steps and study these steps individually. Once we study these, we can put the pieces together to get an accurate description of what happened. An act is therefore the sum of its parts.

Since this model of causality appears to be universal, humans often extend Newtonian ideas of causality to human behavior. But what happens when science shows the Newtonian model of causality does not accurately describe all of our universe? Perhaps we should reconsider applying the Newtonian model to behavior since it is no longer the only way to view the world. Imagine our solar system. We have a sun and eight planets orbiting the sun. We can predict with near exact accuracy where each body will be at any time. Now imagine an atom. Its properties are similar to our solar system in that there are electrons orbiting around a nucleus. If our ideas of Newtonian causality apply, we would be able to predict with near exactitude where each electron will be at any time. However, this is impossible. The best we can do is calculate the probability that an electron will be in a certain place at a certain time. Furthermore, if the electrons of an atom were to follow the laws of Newtonian physics, they would quickly smash into the nucleus of the atom. What happens is an electron exists in all states until we observe the electron. This observation is a wave function collapse.

This new science of quantum mechanics shows our understanding of causality to be far from complete. In fact, scientists see violations of our classical model of causality in subatomic particles. This arises with the phenomenon of entanglement. Particles which are arbitrarily far apart seem to be influencing each other, even though according to relativity this means that what seems to be causing an event from one point of view, from another point of view doesn't happen until after the effect being caused. In effect, there is no such thing as cause and effect.
We now know that we can follow Newtonian laws of physics for bodies larger than atoms and quantum physics for subatomic particles. To connect causality with notions of human thought, we must inquire – what is human thought? Is it analogous to the certainty of predicting where a ball will end up after striking it with a golf club, or is it more like predicting where an electron will be located around a nucleus based on a probability function? The author rejects the notion that the brain works in a way similar to Newtonian bodies floating through the air, where we can accurately predict behaviors based on conditions surrounding the brain. Instead, it acts as a quantum computer of sorts; it considers all possibilities at once and only computes an outcome when we consciously think (analogous to collapsing the wave function). It is simply impossible to reliably and accurately explain why a person acts in a certain way, even knowing everything about that person. Further, this approach rejects the teleological view that human behavior acts in accordance with an end. This adoption of a quantum probabilistic view of human behavior rejects both Newtonian and Aristotelian views of causality. Therefore, in order to examine race in our society, we must reject using old models of linear causality and use one that comports with the understanding that there are nearly infinite, unknowable factors affecting human behavior.

SYSTEMS THINKING

Instead of breaking down a system to its individual parts to study, systems thinking looks at the system as a whole. A system is an entity that maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts. Interaction itself thereby becomes the focus of a system. Instead of individual parts, interactions become responsible for the characteristics of a system. The interactions of the parts become more relevant to understanding the system than understanding the parts themselves. One way of differentiating this approach from those outlined above is considering a system different from the sum of its parts, either lesser or greater. This difference from the sum of its parts is defined as emergence. Emergent properties are those that cannot be found in any individual part of a system. Consider a carbon atom. Now add five more and arrange them in a hexagonal shape. Now add more hexagonal groupings of carbon in a lattice. What emerges is graphite, a dark material that conducts electricity. Now, instead of a hexagonal shape, arrange the carbon atoms tetrahedrally. Arrange these tetrahedrons in a lattice. This arrangement creates diamond, a clear material that does not conduct electricity. The individual parts, carbon atoms, are exactly the same in diamond and graphite. Traditional reductionist thinking would break down these crystals to individual carbon atoms and find no difference between them. But how do we explain the difference in color, hardness and ability to conduct electricity? These are the emergent properties of the system. It is the structure itself, and not the individual properties of carbon atoms that leads to these emergent properties. Arranging carbon into certain structures creates properties that do not exist in carbon itself.

Systems thinking alters traditional thinking of causality. Instead of traditional linear causation, this model recognizes that effects have multiple causes and causes have multiple effects. Outcomes are a product of mutual, multiple and reciprocal interactions within a system. Systems thinking eschews traditional linear causality in the form of A -> B -> C -> D. An input does not cause, in a proximate or ultimate sense, an outcome in a system; it only modifies existing processes which produce those outcomes. Outcomes, or effects, therefore do not have a single, identifiable cause. Instead, these effects come about from the interactions of an entire system.

SYSTEMS THINKING AND RACE

Race in America is an example of a system at work. How do we explain the differences in societal status between races today? We can point to years in bondage, de jure discrimination, segregation, etc, as proximate causes. This would be correct, in that each of these examples in some way led to the current racial situation. However, examining each of these causes would follow the traditional reductionist approach of causality. Instead, we can view these examples as part of an overall system, and it is the interaction of these processes that is the “cause” of present society.

Consider a story to illuminate this system of interdependence. Redlining was a practice in the early 20th century where the government and banks drew red lines where people of color lived and refused to give loans to anyone within those lines. Imagine two different widget makers, A and B in 1900 in the same city. The government and a bank decide to give A money to help grow its business and do not give the same money to B. A can now afford to expand and reach out to new customers. A can buy the new widget machine it needs and this grows its production, creating economies of scale. B remains small because it can only spend its revenues. B has to wait 5 years to make the money it takes to buy the new widget machine. In this 5 years, A has expanded to sell its widgets outside of its original area. It makes multiple times more money than B.

A becomes well known in the community because of its business success. This provides it political connections, only helping to grow its business even further. A’s owners, and many like A, take their considerable resources and move to the suburbs. Their tax dollars go with them. They no longer purchase products in the city. This reduces the already small customer base for B and businesses like B. Schools are funded by property taxes. Higher property values lead to more school revenue, ultimately leading to better schools. Family A receives a far better education and grows up around successful role models. B's family grows up around other less educated, poor people.

Fifteen years pass. Patriarchs of A and B grow old and want to pass control of their businesses to their kin. The kids need to go to college. A has plenty of money to pay for college because of its business success (far better schools don’t hurt much either). B did all it could to survive, competing with larger A, so it is operating on a shoestring budget. Expensive college is not an option. A's kin go to college and study business. While there, they develop a social network of successful business types. B's do not. This creates many business advantages for A.
A accumulates more wealth than B over time. Patriarchs A and B die. A leaves more wealth to its kin. A's descendants begin life with more advantages than B's. A's kin can go to summer camp, play musical instruments, travel, hire tutors, etc. B's cannot.

A's community continues to develop economically, while B's remains stagnant at best, depressing more likely. Poverty begets crime. The community leaders think an austere approach to crime is the most appropriate, rather than a look at the underlying problems leading to poverty that lead to crime. They increase police presence in B's community and arrest members of the community at disproportionate rates compared to A's community. Many of the males go to prison, reducing their ability to work. This dulls the economic vibrancy of the community even more. They get out of jail and are unable to find work because of their criminal record. They resort to more crime.

This example in a vacuum shows how a community comprised of one race resulted from the interaction of many processes. How do we explain the present situation of crime and economic depression in B’s community? Can we say the single act of giving the loan to A over B caused the present situation? A traditional approach would answer that question in the affirmative. If the bank had given a loan to B, the story would not have unfolded in the way it did. Therefore, breaking the story down to its parts, giving the loan to A over B was the determinative factor in the outcome of the story. A systems approach would find this answer lacking. Instead, it would look at a multitude of factors. It was not just the denial of the loan that determined the outcome. It was the denial of the loan combined with many other factors that led to the outcome. Further, it was the way these other factors interacted with each other that produced the outcome. For example, consider A’s and B’s grandchildren when they are born. The advantages given to A’s grandchildren are greater due to the interaction of many factors giving A an advantage over B in society. People move to new neighborhoods all of the time. That alone does not have a significant impact on a community. But when people move, they move their money as well to a new tax base. This money goes to schools through property taxes. It is not just the increased budget that gives an advantage to members of that school. It is also the relative loss of money in the old school, lowering their quality of education. So it is the interaction of both of these factors in making one school much better than the other.

The racial situation in America is therefore a combination of innumerable interactions within a system. Consider this diagram developed by Barbara Reskin :


Note that the arrows are a mere approximation of the connections in the system. In reality, each node would connect to one another in a system of mutual interdependence. Further, each node would be made up of its own system. Take neighborhood segregation. Reskin suggests it could be made up of housing market discrimination, mortgage-market discrimination, location of public housing, zoning decisions, disparate economic resources and opposition to black neighbors. All of these form to create a system, which, when they interact with one another, lead to neighborhood segregation. Neighborhood segregation as a system then leads to other systems of effects. Reskin suggests some of these effects are school segregation, achievement test scores, exposure to crime, job segregation, racial stigma and lower property values. Note how school segregation and racial stigma are both causes and effects of neighborhood segregation. This illustrates the mutual interdependency of a system.

This new systems approach to the impact of race in America disregards Newtonian and Aristotelian notions of causation. It is impossible to know the exact causes behind present problems. This way of thinking is advantageous because it forces the observer to consider a far greater number of potential causes behind problems and enables a more comprehensive approach to fixing certain problems. Furthermore, a more comprehensive approach might identify better, more tailored solutions to problems. Instead of using the machete of traditional linear causation where you have one great solution to a problem, one can consider identifying smaller, more effective tactics using the scalpel of systems thinking.

RACE AS A STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

While the above has shown how different factors can combine and interact with each other to produce an outcome, little has been said about the system itself. The way systems set up to produce an outcome can be viewed as a structure. And it is this structure that produces certain groups. Peter Blau defines a social structure as a multidimensional space of differentiated social positions among which a population is distributed. The social associations of people provide both the criterion for distinguishing social positions and the connections among them that make them elements of a single social structure. He views individuals as being part of a greater social space, with their positions defined in relation to other individuals. The structure is therefore the web of connections between individuals. The structure is not just the connections themselves; rather, it is also the way they are connected. The relationships themselves are important.

Defining structures in terms of the rules and resources brought to actions and interactions, however, makes the reproduction of structures sound too much like the product of individual and intentional action. The concept of social structure must also include conditions under which actors act, which are often a collective outcome of action impressed onto the physical environment. To Jean‐Paul Sartre, this is the practico‐inert. Therefore we must look to the past to examine the structure of current systems. This is because most of the current systems are the product of layers of previous systems. These previous systems acted and produced effects that we see today. Processes that produce and reproduce residential racial segregation illustrate how structural relations become inscribed in the physicality of the environment, often without anyone intending this outcome, thereby conditioning future action and interaction. Realizing that one must look to the past to examine structures suggests the final step is looking at how structures influence the future. Since so many factors influence a system, it is nearly impossible to forecast all of the effects of changing a system. Because of this, unintended consequences might arise from changes in a system. Kind-hearted, good faith efforts today could lead to disastrous outcomes in the future.

Consider housing today. A great history unfolded to lead to the situation we have today. As mentioned above, racially discriminatory behavior and policies such as redlining limited the housing options of minorities. This confined them to certain neighborhoods. The people with the means to leave these communities did so. Often, the people with these means were non-minorities. Young outlines what naturally progressed from these circumstances: “Property‐owners fail to keep up their buildings, and new investment is hard to attract because the value of property appears to decline. Because of more concentrated poverty and lay‐off policies that disadvantage Blacks or Latinos, the effects of an economic downturn in minority neighborhoods are often felt more severely, and more businesses fail or leave. Politicians often are more responsive to the neighborhoods where more affluent and white people live; thus schools, fire protection, policing, snow removal, garbage pick‐up, are poor in the ghetto neighborhoods. The spatial concentration of poorly maintained buildings and infrastructure that results reinforces the isolation and disadvantage of those there because people are reluctant to invest in them. Economic restructuring independent of these racialized processes contributes to the closing of major employers near the segregated neighborhoods and the opening of employers in faraway suburbs. As a result of the confluence of all these actions and processes, many Black and Latino children are poorly educated, live around a higher concentration of demoralized people in dilapidated and dangerous circumstances, and have few prospects for employment.”

A structural social group is therefore a collection of persons who are similarly positioned in interactive and institutional relations that condition their opportunities and life prospects. Structural social groups are constituted through the social organization of labor and production, the organization of desire and sexuality, the institutionalized rules of authority and subordination, and the constitution of prestige. Structural social groups are relationally constituted in the sense that one position in structural relations does not exist apart from a differentiated relation to other positions. Racial minorities in America are examples of structural social groups. Because of immutable characteristics such as skin color, they exist in society in a similar position. They then go through the societal structure together with these characteristics as the guideposts. The structure itself also defines how these racial groups are restrained and what opportunities are given to them. It is the shared characteristics themselves that operate within a system that determine what opportunities are given.

Race relations would improve greatly if Americans would embrace a systems thinking approach to race as opposed to a “rugged individualist” approach, where every person is an island floating about the sea of society. Far too often, people want to break problems down to simple solutions. This practice engenders the practice of playing the “blame game”. An account of someone's life circumstances contains many strands of difficulty or difference from others that, taken one by one, can appear to be the result of decision, preferences, or accidents. This is the blame game – when someone sees a minority in a certain social position, they assume it was because of poor decision-making. Instead, a better way to look at this person is by looking at many events throughout the lives of those similarly situated, where one can see a pattern of interdependent relationships forming over time and leading to the present. What appears is a model of structural inequality, where peoples’ expectations and abilities in life are constrained or dictated by the structures they are a part of. This does not suggest we abandon the idea of individual responsibility. Rather, it suggests the systems thinking approach is an empathetic approach in that it forces people to understand that we are products of everything that has happened up to this point. So instead of thinking of race as the determinative factor in present society, the racial majority can understand that race is but one factor combined with many others in a system of mutual interaction. Everyone has gone through turbulent times in life, but not everyone is considered a racial minority. Systems thinking is therefore empathetic because the racial majority can think of how it has gone through tough times and how they are the people they are today because of those experiences. Systems thinking merely asks them to add race into the equation.

RACIAL STRUCTURES AND JURISPRUDENCE

A person's social location in structures differentiated by class, gender, age, ability, race, or caste often implies predictable status in law, educational possibility, occupation, access to resources, political power, and prestige. Not only do each of these factors enable or constrain self‐determination and self‐development, they also tend to reinforce the others. Over time, these systems interact with each other to develop even larger structures. Enter the American legal system. The present legal system is based on the traditional linear views of causality, where each legal harm can be attributed to an individual cause. For example, to succeed on a disparate treatment discrimination claim, a plaintiff must show that the defendant discriminated, that the plaintiff was harmed, and that the discrimination caused the particular harm, both as a matter of actual causation, but also proximate causation. This linear way of thinking strips all context from discrimination claims in that it only looks at a claim in a vacuum. Courts disregard the myriad other factors in a system leading to present day.
If the Supreme Court consistently viewed race in the context of systems thinking since its inception, society would be much different today. This paper will now give an example of a systems approach to race and then illustrate how a systems approach to race is better than current jurisprudence.

In 1951, thirteen parents on behalf of twenty students filed a class action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. These parents were concerned with the law set forth in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which stated separate but equal treatment of races did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The parents asserted this system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but relatively equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans. The Plessy Court said segregation did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it inflicted no legally cognizable harm on blacks. The Brown Court considered that argument and, after remarking on the significance of educational opportunity in modern life, said, “To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” This is perhaps the best example of a systems thinking approach to race used by the Court. This is because the Court did not adopt the linear causality approach and say, “The board of education is treating the races differently. Therefore, it is facial discrimination.” Instead it said,

"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system."

Note how the Court is considering several different factors in determining the harm to the segregated black schoolchildren as opposed to saying the segregation itself is the harm. This is the preferred approach because the Court recognizes there are many factors at play and not just reducing the issue to a binary evaluation of harm or no harm.

Unfortunately, as the years have passed since Brown, the Court has abandoned the systems thinking approach to race. Instead of thinking of each race as separate systems made up of many factors at play with one another, the Court now views all races as the same. This approach can best be summed up as the anticlassification principle, where it is the classification of race itself that is the constitutional harm. The 14th Amendment, once a piece of legislation enacted to remedy wrongs against former slaves, is now applied “equally” to all.

This anticlassification principle has disastrous effects in that it forbids governments from remedying past racial discrimination. Consider the City of Richmond in the 1970s. Its population was fifty percent black, but only two-thirds of one percent of its construction projects went to minority owned businesses over a five-year span. A federal government study found racial nepotism virtually defined the construction sector, and a near total exclusion of minorities receiving dollars from local trade associations. The mayor even said, “I can say without equivocation, that the general conduct in the construction industry in this area . . . is one in which race discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race is widespread.” The city felt it should do something so it, noting this historical pattern of discrimination, created a program setting aside contracting money for minority owned businesses. The actions taken by the city were an example of a systems thinking approach to solving the problem of very few minority owned construction businesses. Instead of resorting to a situation where every business would sue based on racial discrimination, the city understood that introducing money into the system of minority owned businesses could work out over time in order to end discrimination. The structure was set up over time so that minority owned construction businesses could not exist. No matter how much minority owned businesses tried to succeed, the structure itself prevented them from doing so. The city attempted to slightly alter this structure by adding money to one part of the system. If one minority owned business received a contract and did a good job, perhaps that would signal other companies to do business with them. Seeing a successful minority owned business could then change the minds of the people who thought minorities were incapable of success. These people would then be willing to do business with other minorities. That would bring more minorities into the system. Over time, successful minorities would build up, effectively altering the structure that once held them down. One small move by the city could produce tremendous change.

Can a city employ race-conscious measures to combat societal discrimination? The Court found in the absence of proof of a particular act, racism could no longer be used as an explanation for societal action. It said societal discrimination is an amorphous concept of injury that may be ageless in its reach into the past. This is a threshold moment – taking action to alleviate societal discrimination suffered over hundreds of years is no longer allowable. This is effectively a pronouncement that racism is over in our society. To suspect whites of discrimination without specific proof is now stereotyping whites. Without this specific proof, the Court presumes racial neutrality governs social and economic life. So instead of the city being able to employ small measures to induce systemic change, it can now do nothing. This systems approach of recognizing past wrongs and taking small steps to effect change is clearly better than the present system of requiring a minority owned business to produce evidence of intentional discrimination in a court of law and then letting the market even things out.

Now consider drug laws. These are often in the center of controversy because of the disproportionate numbers of minorities in prison due to these laws. African Americans are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites. Consider this part of the overall system of being black in America. If you are more likely to go to jail, you are more likely to become a felon and lose your ability to work certain jobs. If you are convicted on drug charges, there is a chance that you will lose your ability to receive financial aid to attend college. These factors work together and help to produce the differences in socioeconomic levels between races. This exercise in systems thinking is an example of how facially neutral laws can set up a structure harming one race.

Now imagine a state passes strong new drug laws. It feels one drug is causing more harm to the community than others, so it enacts harsher penalties for one over the other. The state then does a study and finds 98.2 percent of defendants convicted of possessing this drug are black. Following the anticlassification doctrine, only a showing of discriminatory intent by the legislature would violate the Equal Protection Clause. Again, a real world example confirms this. The Eighth Circuit argued that Congress did not adopt the sentencing differential “because of” its impact on African-Americans; rather, Congress had reasons for determining that crack cocaine posed a greater societal threat than powder cocaine, and this judgment in turn supplied justification for adopting the 100 to one sentencing ratio despite its foreseeable adverse impact on African Americans. The Eighth Circuit's opinion in Clary is especially striking because it overturned a lengthy lower court decision that used systems thinking to explore the history of racial bias in the criminal justice system and the sociology of the recent war on drugs, striking down the sentencing guidelines on the grounds that they manifested unconscious racial bias. A systems thinking approach would view these laws as pernicious to one race over the other, and understand that they create a structure that disproportionately affects one race. Over time, this structure will do far more harm than the anticipated good because of the systemic effects of imprisoning one race over the other. These disproportionate prison sentences might end up causing more crime because they so inhibit the ability of one group to succeed compared to the other. One might resort to crime if he is unable to get an education or employment. Contrast this with Congress's traditional causality approach of viewing one drug as more dangerous than the other without examining the impact disparate sentences would have.

Finally, the traditional causality approach does not address the externalities of race problems. There is much ongoing scientific research attempting to figure out the reasons behind such differences in racial economics. Blacks might not be getting the same jobs as whites because they do not have the same education. A black school could be lagging behind because the kids do not pay attention. The kids could not be paying attention because they do not have father figures at home. The father figures could not be at home because of selective enforcement of laws by police. The police might have myriad laws to enforce because of discriminating legislative bodies. The point here is there are countless factors within existing systems. Anticlassification rules are so harmful to the black community because when a body figures out the reasons behind one of these problems, they are not able to alter the existing structures by assisting the groups most in need. Any such measures would be classifying based on race and therefore unconstitutional.

CONCLUSION

This paper has shown that while Newtonian and Aristotelian approaches to cause and effect have a place in our world, they do not belong in predicting human behavior. Further, these approaches are lacking when attempting to explain problems such as segregated communities, disparate prison populations and chasms in education because these are problems that are greater than the summation of individual parts. The better approach is using a systems analysis that recognizes there is not one simple cause to every problem. Instead, one must look at the way society itself is structured. Examining the interplay within these structures gives a far more accurate picture of why society is set up the way it is today. While it is a much more complicated process, it can lead to more comprehensive and sometimes simpler solutions. Finally, the Court’s moving away from a systems approach to race to one based on a colorblind ideology seeking intentional harms is a roadblock to effective racial problem solving. Brown wisely said to consider the many potential effects of treating one race differently from another. Since that decision, the Court has mistakenly taken the position that the government has no interest in ameliorating past harms by changing the current societal structure. This is clearly against the aims of Congress when it passed the Civil War Amendments. The inability of the government to correct past harms by gently influencing present systems will only continue to retard the progress of minorities in America.

Fountain of Youth

Well not really. But I did figure out how to make scented candles last just about forever.

If you are like me you hate how the cheap scented candles burn out after a day or so. They obviously use a poor quality wick because you always end up with a bunch of wax and no wick. F them. I wanted to use this wax because I am a cheapo, so I would turn the oven on and let it melt. The scent still fills up the room, so I considered that successful. That took too much energy, though.

Do you have any of these lying around?



Good. If not, they are cheap as hell. Now, all you have to do is figure out a way to prop the candle up. I used two zippo lighters.



Throw the scented candle on top and there you go! Just make sure to remove any of the stickers from the bottom. They stink.



I've had this little guy going for a week now. The wax itself does not burn, so you are only fighting evaporation. I measured and only a millimeter or so has disappeared. According to my calculations, that is one giant middle finger to candle planned obsolescence.

Populism

If the people saying Obama needs to change his tactics and become a vocal leader are right, this seems like a great political opportunity to deflect from the health care setback. With some financials posting billions in profit while the economy is still in the tank, he can really ride the populist wave and shame the people in Congress who would stand in the way of financial reform. He would be smart to use his "transparent" shtick and shine a light on the people that are obviously bought by the industry.

Sports Articles

If you are bored and like sports articles from a different approach:

Is Derek Jeter the worst defensive short stop of all time?

Success: Winners and Losers

Why Shane Battier is a great player

Microwave Fun

New Heat Rock

Two of my favorite current rappers dropped mixtapes recently.



Cam'Ron - Boss of All Bosses 2




Yo Gotti - Cocaine Musik 4

For the record, I had 4 of the songs/beats from this on one of my tapes before this came out. Please believe.

Can I pick them or what?

Looks like Project Pat saw me put this song on Vol 12. Apparently he decided to spend $10 and a drunken afternoon on putting a video together to catch on to the buzz.

Diminishing Resources

With ever increasing consumption and the emergence of new economic powers, ever wonder how long natural resources will last?

Here is a really interesting infographic on the subject.

Fiscal Conservatives

Soooo they want to run the country and they cannot even keep their little budget in order?

They need to drop that affirmative action hire.

Asimov's The Last Question

This is my favorite short story. It is also my favorite description of god.

More Racism

A white man befriends a group of black folk by giving them chicken. This has got to be the most racist ad of the decade.



Seriously? How could KFC be so dumb to ...

Nahhhhhh. I'm just playing. Thought I was going to go off, eh?

I saw some controversy about this and immediately thought of what I was getting at about projection. Americans completely disregard the context of the ad and instead throw their own inner conflicts all over it.

I'm pretty sure those are West Indians dancing around cheering their team at a cricket match. I have no idea what cricket crowds are like, but if they are anything like soccer, that seems like an accurate scene. The white guy is clearly a fan of the opposing team. And this aired in Australia.

Did you see African Americans shuckin and jivin?

Liberal guilt?

Ahhhh projection

Ever wonder why we so often see the most anti-gay crusaders wrapped in a rainbow colored scarf of scandal? Or why the Family First© types end up in foreign countries sleeping with all types of people other than their wives? Is it the liberal media? Nahhhhhhh. My guess is we are dealing with the fascinating idea of projection, where we project our own fears/desires on others.

It is pretty simple. Ever date someone who constantly accuses you of cheating? She is cheating on you (I use "she" here because, well, I don't really have a reason. WAIT!!! I am projecting!!!). Or at least will when she can get away with it. Not because of some clever tactic of being on the offensive at all times in order to keep you defending yourself so you don't see her cheating. It's because she keeps projecting her own desires to cheat on you, on you. Why face the fact that she wants to cheat when she can take the moral high ground and think that you are the one who wants to sleep with someone else?

Nothing is more comical than neoconservative projection. Well, it would be comical if the Soviet style lines of people afraid of their own shadows subscribing to it weren't so sad. Ok I am being mean. And I'm biased. Instead of me just casting aspersions, let's take a look at some classic neoconservative projection.

Newt Gingrich is a smart guy. Take a look at a recent speech. While watching this, keep projection in mind. If you are afraid, others are afraid. If you are bellicose, others are eager to fight. If you are gay, we need to stop the gay agenda. On and on.

"Many of our elites around the world are utterly incapable of telling the truth. And utterly incapable of standing up for the truth. And utterly incapable of having the courage of confronting evil no matter how obvious it is."

Here is where I get confused. Is this projection or irony? We lied our asses off in order to start a preemptive war with the middle east. Not just the usual political way of lying where you are just ambiguous enough to suggest inferences in a certain direction without making a statement that can be called a lie. I am talking, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." I am talking, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon."

The courage of confronting evil? Something like sitting down and talking with them? Would that count? Hmmmm. Maybe someone is too afraid to sit down with the president of Iran. Because talking with a member of the axis of evil will never work.

Let's keep going.

"We need to draw a sharp line that says if you have an evil regime and you engage in evil things, we are not going to let you fire off weapons which could have catastrophic results. Period."

Again, irony or projection? What would you consider a country that kidnaps people, gives them no rights, and tortures them in secret places around the world? Ok, you can see right through this question. I'll stop. Guantanamo Bay. Black ops. The US is not an evil country. Some of our policies sure as hell look like it.

"The decent, the honorable, and the law abiding cannot survive by applying the same standards to the evil, the aggressive, the criminal, and the vicious."

Riiiiiight. It's others that are evil, aggressive, criminal, and vicious.

This is not a diatribe on how the US is evil. If you get really offended by this, I think you missed the point. People of my political persuasion project as well. Know the person who thinks everything is an example of racism? That's right.

When it comes down to it, being an armchair internet psychologist makes politics much more fun. Next time you hear bombastic speech from one side about the other, think about who they are really talking about. If you ever really want to know something about someone, ask them what they think about others.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

I implore you to read this.

Republican budget hyprocisy

Jackasses

Sade - Soldier of Love

She is my favorite singer behind Bjork. I cannot wait for her new album.

Roll Up Vol. 13

Some more fresh bumps. These beats are ridiculous. Fuck your fixed gear. C Hart gets a pass.

1 - Juelz Santana - Mixin up the Medicine feat. Yelawolf
2 - Clipse - Door Man
3 - Gucci Mane - Stupid Wild feat. Lil Wayne & Cam'Ron
4 - Young Jeezy - Grindin feat. Lil Boosie
5 - Ransom - Pacman feat. Yo Gotti
6 - USDA - Checkin Bank
7 - Big Bank Black - Edgewood feat Alley Boy, Scales & Veli Sosa
8 - Triple Cs - Yams (Remix) feat. Yo Gotti
9 - Lil Haze - Swagg on feat. Dorrough & Rich Boy
10 - Clipse - Showing out feat. Yo Gotti
11 - Young Jeezy - Scared Money feat. Lil Wayne
12 - Brisco - So Roxy
13 - Yelawolf - Good to go feat. Bun B
14 - Lil Scrappy - Too Much
15 - Gucci Mane - Yelp
16 - Yo Gotti - I'll Ride, I'll Die feat. Yung LA, J Futuristic & All Star
17 - B.G. - Chopper City is an Army

Roll Up Vol. 12

My dumb ass thought I uploaded this last month. I've been walking around listening to it for a while now. smh. Oh well. Tweaked it a bit. Here's some new bumps. Fuck Kanye. And Fuck Joe Lieberman.

1 - Styles P - Gangsta feat. Dead Prez
2 - 50 Cent - Psycho feat. Eminem
3 - Rihanna - Hard feat. Young Jeezy
4 - Lil Wayne - Watch My Shoes
5 - Pill - We Outside feat. Alley Boy
6 - Triple Cs - Trick n Off feat. Rick Ross and Gucci Mane
7 - Project Pat - Get Yo Ass Robbed feat. Juicy J and V-Slash
8 - Starlito - Tie the Bag Tight feat. Young Buck and Yo Gotti
9 - Freddie Gz - Gangsta feat. OJ da Juiceman
10 - Red Cafe - I'm Ill feat. Fabolous
11 - Juicy J - Hood Sprung
12 - Styles P - Where my Money feat. Peedi Crakk
13 - Lil Wayne - Ice Cream Paint Job
14 - Freddie Gibbs - Fuck Rap II
15 - Outlawz - Fuck You feat. Young Buck
16 - Lil Wayne - Drop The World feat. Eminem

RIP Republican Party

I've been saying this for months, but I want to write this down for I told you so's sake.

I am a hater. I hate on everything. I sure as hell am not impressed by many people. Especially politicians.

During the primaries, I was all about Kucinich. Still am. But, being a pragmatic liberal, one has to live in reality. So I thought Edwards was the man. His populist rhetoric was too good to ignore. Even though it was mostly hot air, his anti-business vitriol now seems prescient after the Wall Street disaster. The primaries came and he bowed out. Oh well.

Then it was Obama and Clinton. I never heard of this Obama guy, so I defaulted to Clinton. In watching those two square off, something became very apparent; Obama and/or his staff were the most brilliant political operatives this country has seen in a long time. How he kept race out of the discussion, except on his terms, after the Reverend Wright bomb is nothing short of miraculous and will be looked at as the most politically cunning move since the southern strategy.

Ok, he wins the presidency. First black president, and only 4 decades removed from the Civil Rights Movement. Astounding. Incredible. We get it.

His brilliance comes, not from winning the presidency, but from how he has governed. Obama is a centrist. He is to the right of every Democratic candidate from '08. He is pro-business ("I've always been a strong believer in the power of the free market. I believe that jobs are best created not by government, but by businesses and entrepreneurs willing to take a risk on a good idea. I believe that the role of government is not to disparage wealth, but to expand its reach; not to stifle markets, but to provide the ground rules and level playing field that helps to make them more vibrant - and that will allow us to better tap the creative and innovative potential of our people. For we know that it is the dynamism of our people that has been the source of America's progress and prosperity."), pro charter school and does not shy from war. Calling him a socialist is almost laughable. But you know what? I think he likes it.

Obama knows the Limbaughs, Becks and Fox News are just in it for the money and will say anything to get fatter. So you know what he does? He says these guys are the Republican party. He wants them to go all McCarthy on us and speak as hyperbolically as possible because the secure Republican base will eat it up. He is acting concomitantly with the right wing smoke stacks to redefine the Republican party as whackos.

The best part of it? The Republican party is eating it up! They embrace the teabaggers and birthers (maybe not ostensibly, but certainly by refusing to deny. Remember "If muslims are against 9/11, where are all of the Muslim leaders decrying it?") in an astoundingly short-sighted political move to try to derail health care reform.

Now, I like conservatives. Intelligent, principled conservatism is a defensible platform. I think a lot can be learned and implemented from this school of thought. I also think conservatives should have a say in the government in order to avoid a single-party dictatorship.

Ok, now my main point. What Obama is doing is successfully branding the Republican party as the party of Limbaugh while simultaneously taking reasonable conservative measures as his own. Since the party of Limbaugh is tantamount to the party of anti-Obama, what is the Republican party going to do when Obama's platform is partly made up of conservative principles? And when he makes moves that anger the political left, where are they going to go? Something tells me they are not all of a sudden going to demand to see Obama's birth certificate. At some point Republican leadership will realize their folly and reign in the crazy. But where will they be? Obama will have his name on health care reform and ending the hugely unpopular wars. And when they suggest reforms... whoops! Obama has already co-opted them as his own!

This is why I have come around on this Obama guy to realize he is working at a meta-political level. He is giving his opposition enough rope to hang themselves when he could easily point out how his policies and actions are anything but socialism. His empty vessel nature also enables him to slowly nudge the hard-left into realizing not all conservative ideas are hell's spawn.

The great unifier? We shall see. But as for now, we'll have to settle for Republican slayer.

The Cleveland Browns select with the number 1 draft pick

Jody Breeze - Oh My God

Can't wait for this dude's album.

Ads on buildings?

Over the summer a building downtown altered its windows to display the message "LIVE UNITED" in lights at night. We still don't know what that meant.

Either way, it got me to thinking. Why is it that downtown landmarks do not often have advertisements on them? Talk about an effective way to get your message out there. Is it like when baseball floated the idea that it would put ads on the bases and everyone flipped out? I wonder if certain spaces are just off-limits to advertisers.

Perhaps we haven't seen ads on landmarks because technology did not exist to make ads as intriguing as the landmarks themselves. Then I saw this and figured we are not too far:

How long until we see ads tailored to individuals based on data from their GPS location and online profiles? Talking buildings coming to a city near you in 2012.

Unbelievable Corporatism

Everyone knows journalism is dead. Profit motive for news organizations can only lead to stories that will make money. But what I saw on 60 Minutes last night shows news organizations to be nothing more than shills for their corporate directors.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood had a record profit year in 2008. Hollywood’s revenue was up 2% for the year to a record $9.76 billion. (I am not paying a subscription to the Hollywood Reporter, so I got these numbers from this guy.) In 2006, the industry’s all-media revenue was $42.6. billion. So it must be good times right? Business is certainly booming. $42.6 billion! Ummm, not so, says 60 Minutes in their fluff piece for the movie industry.




I guess the piracy industry is going to wipe out Hollywood. Because of these evil pirates, the poor behind-the-scenes people are starving and the industry is taking a huge hit. Oh wait, they had record revenues last year? Kiss my ass.

Just in case I ever get that dream PR job, I am going to make up a few arguments for the industry:

"We are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the internet and its necessary companion called BitTorrent. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This internet and BitTorrent threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copy right owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright."

I'm pretty good, right?

"Nothing of value is free. It is very easy to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else's property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled."

I should work for the industry. How about this whopper?

"I say to you that the internet is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone."

Not sure one would see that on the SATs, but how can you argue against that?

Now replace “internet” with “VCR.” Replace “BitTorrent” with “blank video cassette.” Sound familiar to anyone? Reach back to 1982 and this is what THE representative for the movie industry was saying about the nascent technology soon to completely destroy the movie industry – the VCR. A new technology came out and the movie industry freaked because they were afraid they would lose some of their profits. Well according to them, they should just be scraping by at this point.

$42.6 billion comes to mind.

I think we learned a valuable lesson here. Do not trust this industry when they forecast what a new technology will do to their business. Their predictions in 1982 were not just a little off base; they were astronomically wrong. That’s like, Congressional Budget Office wrong (cheap shot). The scary new technology grew into a DVD and Blue Ray industry that made them $22.4 billion last year.

Now think about the 60 Minutes piece. This was an infomercial against net neutrality. Sure it was a reporting piece – it reported PR from the movie industry.

Start with the emotionally captivated interviewer – “He brought a child in there with him to do this?!?” Please. Next thing we know it, the Freakonomics guys will be talking about a correlation between watching dad film movies and violent crime.

Gambling, human trafficking, child prostitution, drug dealing… counterfeiting movies!!

Then the spokesperson tells us, “Piracy is costing the movie industry $6 billion a year at the box office.” Riiiiiiiiiight. If that’s the case, their revenue numbers would have been higher before all of this crazy internet piracy started. Wait… last year they had a record year of $9.76 billion at the box office? Something tells me the accountants from the afraid of VCR days are still working there.

Spokesman goes on to say, “They want to pay less, or close to nothing.” This is the point that illuminates the dishonesty from the MPAA. The people buying pirated movies are not the same as the people going to movies. The spokesman even acknowledges this when saying, “The people buying these are not that quality conscious, that’s not the experience they are looking for.” But when the MPAA complains about lost revenues, it says each pirated movie is a lost sale. See how ridiculous that is? The person buying the pirated copy has no interest in going to the movie in the first place, and this is something their spokesman acknowledges! And how about this – “Virtually every movie is pirated on the internet”? Well if they are recording record profits with every movie on the internet, something tells me piracy is not as big of a problem as they are claiming.

And now why I think this was an infomercial against network neutrality. Network neutrality is quietly emerging as the next political fight. Large media companies don’t want to be regulated because they want to charge more for certain content. Something like CBS programming, maybe?

But why have a piece on network neutrality, where you would be somewhat required to offer counter opinions? Instead, run a piece scaring people about how the internet is going to take your favorite movies away from you. And what about this new internet technology? The last part of the segment tells us all we need to know about CBS’s opinion – “And things could be even worse unless something is done in cyberspace to stop people from downloading.” What? The reporter stated that as a fact. I hate to use the Fox News style, but some people would argue things are not getting worse, considering they MADE RECORD PROFITS LAST YEAR. I wonder why a company owning several television stations and Showtime would run a piece like this?

We know the movie industry will go very far to protect themselves. We have learned that they will make up numbers and say whatever they want in order to protect their business model. We also know they are too stubborn and dumb to realize how to adapt to new business models, considering they tried to block something that ended up making them $22.4 billion last year.

When the net neutrality discussion heats up, remember this about the industry and think about where most of the reported information is coming from.

QB Madness

QB Disaster

A quarterback drops back to pass 30 times in a row and every time throws the ball into the ground. QB rating: 39.583333333333336.

Derek Anderson's QB rating: 36.201298701298704.

Most uncomfortable interview ever

Gene Simmons is either Andy Kauffman-esque or my hero.

The Assassination of the American Black Female Perspective

This paper deals with the group I feel is most forgotten in society - the black woman. I didn't feel like taking out the parenthetical citations. I wrote it in a day, so forgive any lack of proofreading.



Since the beginning of American history “Silence and invisibility are the hallmarks of black women in the imagery of American life” (Painter 211). Black women were subject to many atrocities throughout their history; arguably more than any other group of people on earth. They were kept as property, raped and cast aside for hundreds of years in this country. In the author’s opinion, the black female voice is the last one taken into account in America. In an effort to shed light on this, this paper will investigate the systematic discrediting and casting aside of the black female perspective in this country’s history. The paper will begin by investigating black female history from their introduction to America, focusing on the stereotypes created by racist institutions. It then looks at sexual assault in this country and investigates the disparate treatment between black and white victims. Next it looks at how society discredits the black female perspective by looking at history and contemporary media practices. It then ends with two studies of high profile cases involving the harassment and rape of black women, tying in the previous arguments to show the common occurrence of disregarding the black female perspective, ultimately leading to a lack of credibility.

The author would like to note race and gender both play a critical role in this society, and it is often hard to distinguish between the two. Kimberle Crenshaw gives a good synopsis:

Black women can experience discrimination in ways that are both similar to and different from those experienced by white women and black men. Black women sometimes experience discrimination in ways similar to white women’s experiences; sometimes they share very similar experiences with black men. Yet often the experience double-discrimination – the combined effects of practices which discriminate on the basis of race, and on the basis of sex. And sometimes, they experience discrimination as black women – not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women (Crenshaw Demarginalizing… 149).

Crenshaw recognizes both race and gender play roles with the idea of intersectionality.

African-American women by virtue of our race and gender are situated within at least two systems of subordination: racism and sexism. This dual vulnerability does not simply mean that our burdens are doubled but instead, that the dynamics of racism and sexism intersect in our lives to create experiences that are sometimes unique to us. In other words, our experiences of racism are shaped by our gender, and our experiences of sexism are often shaped by our race (Crenshaw Race, Gender… 1467).

This paper will focus on the racial aspect of the black female perspective, knowing the gender aspect still plays a critical role in any analysis.

I. Historical Stereotypes

The discounting and manipulation of the black female perspective in society has been happening since the induction of black women into society. From the early 1630s to the present, black American women of all shades have been portrayed as hypersexual "bad-black-girls”. (Jewell 46) The Jezebel character, in which a woman was governed entirely by her libido, is one of the most prevalent images of black women in antebellum America. This Jezebel was the opposite of the mid-nineteenth-century ideal of the white Victorian lady. She did not lead men and children to God; piety was foreign to her. She saw no advantage in prudery, indeed domesticity paled in importance before matters of the flesh (Phillips 412). In reality, this is based on a bit of truth and a lot of lies and false interpretation. The truth aspect is small; free black women sometimes became the willing concubines of wealthy white southerners in a system called placage, in which the white suitor agreed to financially support the black woman and her children in exchange for her long-term sexual services. The white men met the black women at occasions called "Quadroon Balls” (Id). This is where the truth stops and the lies and false interpretations begin. The misinterpretations began before slavery even existed in America. When European travelers went to Africa they found people dressed not like them, but with far less clothing due to the climate (White 29). Cultural differences led the Europeans to think this type of dress was lascivious. Unable to understand the African culture, white Europeans, locked into the racial ethnocentrism of the 17th century, attributed African polygamy and tribal dances to an uncontrollable sexual lust (Id). The fascination with African sexuality quickly grew with the Europeans. William Bosman described the black women on the coast of Guinea as "fiery" and "warm" and "so much hotter than the men." William Smith described African women as "hot constitution'd Ladies" who "are continually contriving stratagems how to gain a lover" (Id). From these first trips and accounts, the West began its continued practice of looking at blacks as inferior. Not only looking at blacks as inferior, the West used these racist opinions as justifications for enslavement. This was easy to do by claiming blacks were subhuman. The West claimed blacks were intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, morally underdeveloped, and animal-like sexually (Id). This was used as justification for saying whites were the only civilized and rational people, whereas the barbaric blacks deserved subjugation.

The institution of slavery itself further contributed to the idea of a Jezebel character being sexually promiscuous. During times of sale, purchasers requested the slaves to remove their clothing for inspection. In theory, this was done to insure they were healthy, able to reproduce, and, equally important, to look for whipping scars – the presence of which implied that the slave was rebellious (Pilgrim). In reality, this turned into a sexually exploitive function. Nudity, especially among women, implied lack of civility, morality, and sexual restraint even when forced. Slaves often wore few clothes or incredibly ragged ones, whereas white women had clothing covering their bodies. The social impact of this was large, as this reinforced the belief of white civility, modesty, and sexual purity, whereas black women were uncivilized, immodest, and sexually aberrant (Id).

The institution of slavery also called for frequent pregnancies because black women were the suppliers of future slaves. Slaves were encouraged to reproduce by many different means. Many slave owners gave incentives for women to reproduce. Some offered a new pig for each child born, a new dress for each surviving infant, or no work on Saturdays to black women who produced six children (Rawick 228). Owners also encouraged young black girls to have sex as "anticipatory socialization" for their later status as "breeders" (Pilgrim). When they did reproduce, owners viewed their fecundity as proof of their insatiable sexual appetites (Id). One contemporary historian wrote:

Major periodicals carried articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular "breeder" were often the topic of parlor or dinner table conversations. The fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that "women wasn't nothing but cattle." Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation, so did the slave woman's sexual activities. (White 31)
This shows society did not even look at black women as humans. The black woman was just there to supply future labor. Talk about how to increase efficiency in the reproductive process contributed even more to viewing black women as hypersexual.

This look at history shows the discounting of African women from the beginning of their time in this country. Society treated these women as barbaric, hypersexual, baby machines and thought nothing more of them. One must think of the impact this has on the perception of present day black women. These predominant thoughts of black women as sexually promiscuous remain in society’s consciousness today. Unfortunately this is not just perception; it has real world impacts. This idea of black women being sexually promiscuous has drastic effects in some very sensitive areas. One major area is sexual assault, and we can see the historical untruths and misinformation of centuries ago having a lasting and real impression today.

II. The Black Female Perspective in Cases of Sexual Assault

Race is a tremendous and distinguishing factor between women in sexual assault cases. An initial discussion of data supports this view. In cases of rape, we can look at the race of the victim to see disparate results between races. In cases where a black man is accused of rape, he is historically treated much more harshly if the victim is white. In Rape and Criminal Justice: The Social Construction of Sexual Assault, Gary LaFree confirms these statistics and finds black males receive lesser sentences for rape crimes in which the victim is black. Compared to other defendants, blacks who were suspected of assaulting white women received more serious charges, were more likely to have their cases filed as felonies, were more likely to receive prison sentences if convicted, were more likely to be incarcerated in the state penitentiary (as opposed to a jail or minimum-security facility), and received longer sentences on the average (LaFree 139). LaFree takes into account other factors such as injury to the victim and acquaintance between the assailant and victim and finds unchanged results. Further confirming these findings, Anthony Walsh found the “sentence severity mean for blacks who assaulted whites, which was significantly in excess of mean for whites who assaulted whites, was masked by the lenient sentence severity mean for blacks who assaulted blacks” (Walsh 170).

A Maryland study on rape convictions showed in all 55 cases where the death penalty was imposed the victim had been white, and that between 1960 and 1967, 47 percent of all black men convicted of criminal assaults on black women were immediately released on probation (Wriggins 121). The average sentence received by Black men, exclusive of cases involving life imprisonment or death, was 4.2 years if the victim was Black, 16.4 years if the victim was white (Id). These data confirm black victims are racially discriminated against because their rapists, whether black or white, are less likely to be charged with rape, and when convicted, are less likely to receive significant jail time than the rapists of white women (Crenshaw Demarginalizing… 1277). Growing apparent are ideas of institutional racism and unfair treatment between black and white victims of rape. Because we now know this phenomenon exists, we can examine potential factors leading to this problem.

Looking at history, we find rape is nearly just as much an issue of race compared to gender for black women. Throughout much of American history, the law did not even consider black women the victims of rape. This is because the rape of any black woman (considered property) during slavery was not a crime (Harris 599). A case from 1873 illustrates the difference in treatment between victims of rape of different color. Black men often received the death penalty for raping white women in Virginia at the time. However, in the case of a black man raping a black woman, the Virginia Court reversed the conviction by saying the defendant’s behavior, “though extremely reprehensible, and deserving of punishment, does not involve him in the crime which this statute was designed to punish.” Christian v. Commonwealth, 64 Va. (23 Gratt.) 954, 959 (1873). The only difference in the two crimes is the race of the victim; the white victim begets the death penalty whereas the black victim sees her assailant walk away. Take into account black women were the servants of white families during and after slavery, thus putting them in compromising and potentially dangerous situations (rape was the most common form of interracial sex (D’Emilo and Freedman 102)), and one can easily see how the black female perspective is one not taken into account in the public’s perception of rape.

The Jezebel stereotype became a rationalization for sexual relations between white men and black women, especially between slave owners and slaves (Pilgrim). White society often perceived the black woman as having a voracious appetite for sex, one not satiated merely by black men. In society’s eyes the Jezebel then desired white men, which led to the belief that white men did not have to rape black women (Id). Linda Williams feels society justified the rape of black women due to three stereotypes held over from slavery:

(a) A denial of responsibility, in which the attacker actually becomes the victim because he was provoked by a stereotypical black female with a questionable sexual nature and low morals;
(b) A denial of any possible injury to a sexually assaulted black female because of her constant desire for sex and her previous experience with black men, who as the stereotype goes, possess larger genitals than do their white counterparts; and,
(c) A denial that the black woman can possibly be seen as a victim if she provoked the attack and already brings to the encounter a bad character. (Williams)

This perverse way of thinking was prevalent even with the people fighting for the rights of slaves. James Redpath, an abolitionist, wrote slave women were "gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons" (Redpath 141). Even people fighting for the rights of slaves were completely unaware of their eschewing of the black female perspective (or were aware and did not care), something which the author believes is still happening today under different circumstances.

Even the idea of “voluntary” sexual relations between slave owners and slaves is often inaccurate, again showing the black female perspective to be lacking. Owners would give material incentives in the form of gifts or would reduce required labor if the woman would continue sexual relations (Pilgrim). If a woman was not lucky enough to get gifts out of it, she would still “voluntarily” consent to sex with owners, their sons and other white males for different reasons. To understand this, we must attempt to get into the mind of a female slave at the time. In their reality, they had to do many things they would not normally do out of fear. If a woman did not consent to sex, she faced many dire consequences. Since she was chattel, she or any of her family members faced the threat of death or sale. A quote perfectly exemplifying this came from a slave woman, "When he make me follow him into de bush, what use me to tell him no? He have strength to make me" (D’Emilio and Freedman 101). This “voluntary” sex by slave women directly supported society’s view of black women as hypersexual.

Keeping with the idea of the public not taking the black female perspective into account, some argue society now considers rape to be the victimization of black men by white men, aided, passively (by silence) or actively (by “crying rape”) by white women (Harris 599). In the author’s opinion, this appears hard to dispute after only a cursory inquisition of society’s views. Delving further, we can look at past writings as evidence of this. In 1892, Ida B. Wells analyzed rape under the framing that race and gender are inseparable in Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She felt the overall patriarchal system in which white males maintained their control led to rape and miscegenation laws: “White men used their ownership of the body of the white female as a terrain on which to lynch the black male” (Id. Emphasis added). She felt white women, even though they often encouraged interracial relationships, were protected by the patriarchal idealization of white womanhood. They were then able to remain silent, unhappily or not, as black men were murdered by mobs (Id). This directly supports the idea of the lost black female perspective in society. These laws were borne from the need to protect the white female and had nothing to do with protecting the black female. We saw much outrage, and rightly so, from civil rights groups after seeing mass lynchings and hard data showing black men were more likely than white men to go to prison for rape of a white female. This outrage led to the repeal of several racial roadblocks in our legal system, including miscegenation laws. But in the author’s opinion, this was done out of sympathy for the historic mistreatment of the black male, evidencing society’s framing of rape around black on white victims and therefore once again forgetting the black female victims. Since the time of this “awakening” the presumption has been the quintessential lynch victim was a casualty of the miscarriage of justice (Painter 209). Lacking access to the means of mass communication, black women have not been able to use their history of abuse as a corrective to stereotypes of rampant sexuality (Painter 212).

Using sexual assault as a framework for looking at the disregard for the black female perspective is beneficial because the examples are so stark. As we have found, the criminal justice system is institutionally unfair to black rape victims. Rape was not even a crime against black females for a long period of time, and the implications of this are far reaching. There is no doubt hundreds of years of a practice (allowable rape of black women) and ideology (the Jezebel woman) must have shaped the mindset of society. It would be naïve to think we are fully over this way of thinking and remnants almost assuredly remain. In the author’s opinion, this is the explanation for the difference in incarceration rates for victimizers of black and white women. Society still holds on to notions of black female promiscuity and this has a direct impact during both prosecution and jury deliberation. In terms of prosecution, this is not just the author’s opinion. A study in Oakland found the police department dismissed over 20 percent of rape cases as “unfounded”, and did not even interview many, if not most, of the women involved (Crenshaw 1281 Demarginalizing…). The vast majority of the victims were poor, black, and often drug abusers and prostitutes. The police remarked, “Those cases were hopelessly tainted by women who are transient, uncooperative, untruthful or not credible as witnesses in court” (Id). Another study demonstrated the victim’s race was a strong factor in the prosecutor's decision regarding juror acceptance of the charges as “prosecutors rejected charges more often if the victim was a racial minority or if the suspect was black.” The researchers found over half - 58.1% - of all rejections and dismissals involved black victims, whereas only 31.1% were white (Pokorak 41). Furthermore, prosecutors were 4 1/2 times more likely to file charges if the victim was white than if the victim was black (Id. at 42). When looked at in a historical context, this immediately draws parallels to the times of the Jezebel. Once again society leaves poor, black women with little or no recourse. In the author’s opinion this is the exact same practice of three hundred years ago wrapped up in the context of today’s society. Males can act in ways not allowable to whites knowing the criminal justice system slants in their favor and against black women. The quote by the police officer brings up what the author thinks is the most apparent and harmful result of centuries of subjugation; the assassination of the credibility of black women. This is a likely result since society stereotyped black women before they even set foot in America. This lack of credibility proves disastrous in sexual assault and harassment cases because it is often one word against the other.

III. How These Stereotypes Affect the Credibility of Black Women

Pervasive stereotypes about Black women not only shape the kind of harassment that Black women experience but also influence whether Black women's stories are likely to be believed (Crenshaw Race, Gender… 1471). This point is crucial because so much of our court system depends on the perception of truth. This court system has a history of disbelieving black women’s words, partially due to the historical connection between chastity and lack of veracity. Historically in America, those who were willing to have sex were not likely to tell the truth (Id). As much of this paper has focused on, the portrayal of black women as lascivious and always willing to have sex had a direct effect on the credibility of black women. Their willingness to engage in sex, in society’s eyes, meant they were not to be trusted. There were even past practices of judges instructing juries to take a black woman’s word with a grain of salt (Id). Once again, it is doubtful that a society can inoculate itself after hundreds of years of a despicable practice. There is no doubt this practice is ongoing when looking at the above conviction statistics of white versus black victims. Getting a jury to believe the account of a black woman is not the end of the problem. Past stereotypes again come into play when people think whether the harm done to the victim is significant or even important. Attitudes of jurors seem to reflect a common belief that Black women are different from white women and that sexually abusive behavior directed toward them is somehow less objectionable (Id). The always asking for sex stereotype is a factor here because even if a jury believes the testimony of the victim, they can ask questions like, “Was it really that bad for her?” and, “Maybe she was asking for it?”

Of importance, the author is not suggesting these thoughts are always conscious, rather, the historic and contemporary treatment of black women has led to collective subconscious thoughts of a diminished black female perspective. Since the abolition of slavery and many other controversial practices occurred many years ago, those methods of subjugating black women have gone by the wayside. However, there are now more subtle ways of discounting the black female victim. We now have a ubiquitous media, capable of influencing the public opinion at large. The media chooses whom it will cover in violence against women cases, and a look at recent events shows an incredibly disproportionate amount of coverage for white women over black women. This phenomenon is sometimes called the “Missing white women syndrome” (Pokorak 3). The following white women have all garnered significant media coverage due to their disappearances:

• Polly Klaas (October 1, 1993) - found murdered; murderer convicted; prompted renewal of Three strikes law
• JonBenét Ramsey (December 25, 1996) - found murdered; cold case until August 2006 arrest of suspect. Suspect was later exonerated and murder is now considered a cold case again.
• Lucie Blackman (July 21, 2000) - A hostess in the Roppongi area of Tokyo that went missing. She was later found murdered in a shallow grave having been drugged and raped beforehand. Suspect was found "Not Guilty". The case gained criticism from Japanese Diet members at the time due to non-white hostesses meeting tragic fates in Japan on a regular basis, but her case becoming worldwide news when it happened.
• Chandra Levy (May 1, 2001) - missing for several months; decomposed body found and foul play/murder is suspected; cold case
• Elizabeth Smart (June 5, 2002) - found alive; kidnapper found incompetent to stand trial
• Laci Peterson (December 23, 2002) - found murdered; murderer convicted; prompted Laci and Conner's law
• Dru Sjodin (November 22, 2003) - found murdered; murderer convicted; prompted Dru's law
• Audrey Seiler (March 28, 2004) - alleged kidnapping in Madison, Wisconsin; Seiler admitted faking the kidnapping several days later
• Brooke Wilberger (May 24, 2004) - still missing, presumed dead; man arrested for murder
• Jennifer Wilbanks (April 26, 2005) - "The Runaway Bride." Went out for a jog and did not return; there was much media speculation that her fiancé had killed her. Found she had staged her own kidnapping when she was discovered alive several days later and admitted what she had done.
• Natalee Holloway (May 30, 2005) - still missing and presumed dead, last known location in Aruba, investigation closed[12] then reopened on February 1, 2008. Has become especially controversial because of the great duration of media coverage.
• Taylor Behl (September 5, 2005) - 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman disappeared and was later found dead; murderer convicted.
• Madeline McCann (May 3, 2007) - 3-year-old blonde girl who has been the subject of a Europe-wide and Northern Africa search.
• Kelsey Smith (June 2, 2007) - 18-year-old woman found murdered
• Jessie Marie Davis (June 15, 2007) was reported missing and later found murdered.


The following are stories the media failed to address:

• Tamika Huston (May 27, 2004) - a 24-year-old black woman who went missing from her Spartanburg, South Carolina home. Described as "bright and beautiful," Huston's remains were found more than a year later in a nearby town, and her ex-boyfriend was convicted of her murder in 2006. Following her disappearance, Huston's relatives tried in vain to interest the national news media in her case; what little national coverage it received often focused on the relative lack of coverage Huston's story was receiving.
• Stepha Henry, a 22-year-old black woman who disappeared while on vacation in Florida.
• Latoyia Figueroa (July 18, 2005) - a 25-year-old woman of African-American and Hispanic descent who was reported as missing and later found strangled to death. Figueroa, who was five months pregnant at the time, was reported missing after she failed to show up to work. Police arrested Stephen Poaches, the father of her unborn child more than a month after she was reported missing. On October 17, 2006, Poaches was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Figueroa and her unborn child. Figueroa's case is especially relevant because it unfolded at the same time as Natalee Holloway's, and cable news channels, such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel, neglected to cover Figueroa's with the same intensity.

Natalee Holloway provides us with a good example. Between May 30 and July 28, 2005, there were over 500 stories on the major twenty-four-hour news stations related to her disappearance in Aruba (Pokorak 3). The media followed her story in intricate detail. They analyzed every police action and scrutinized every aspect of her life in the United States, providing the platform for broad commentary on our current culture (Id). News outlets even reported live from Aruba even when there was no news to report. Contrast that with Latoyia Figueroa. She had the hallmarks of a “damsel in distress” narrative: she was attractive, five months pregnant when she disappeared, and her disappearance suggested foul play (Id). The police suspected Stephen Poaches, Ms. Figueroa's boyfriend and father of her child, although there was no evidence to support that claim. Many comparisons to the Laci Peterson case arose, which was a major story for two years running. Unfortunately the media ignored Latoyia’s case while being more than willing to spend countless hours on white victims.

By only focusing its attention on white victims, the media is no different from the previously detailed societies’ magnification and admiration of white victims at the expense of black women. In fact, recognition of the relatively benign valuation applied by media corporations is only a second-hand way of identifying the truly pernicious attitude it reveals: white women are more important than black women and other women of color (Pokorak 4). Since the media is so ubiquitous, this valuation of white over black victims in the media must have some psychological impact on society. Keeping in line with this paper, the author once again feels this contributes to society eschewing the black female perspective. If all people see on the news is white victims, they will likely build sympathies for white women at the expense of black victims. Since we build so many of our opinions on past experiences, looking at a sterilized history of violence against women to form an opinion will lead to defining the attributes of a victim along race and class lines as opposed to the victimization itself. The zeitgeist then turns to defining victims as pretty white women, and any victim not comporting to those ideals is automatically disadvantaged. Couple that with stereotypes that black women are sexually promiscuous, liars and incapable of rape, and one can begin to see how far behind black women are today when it comes to recourse for victimization. All of this shows based on color of skin alone, the credibility of black women comes into doubt in any sexual violence or harassment case. Two real world cases, the Clarence Thomas / Anita Hill hearings and the Duke Lacrosse team, are perfect examples of this.

IV. Anita Hill

On July 1, 1991 George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill the recently vacated seat of Thurgood Marshall. Toward the end of the confirmation hearings NPR's Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg reported a former colleague of Thomas, University of Oklahoma law school professor Anita Hill, had accused him of sexually harassing her when the two had worked together at the DOE and EEOC based on a leaked Judiciary committee FBI report. (Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Nomination) The Senate Judiciary Committee then conducted hearings to investigate the matter. The major players in the committee were white males; Orin Hatch, Arlen Specter and Joseph Biden. Based on arguments posed above, Anita Hill was disadvantaged from the beginning. She was a black woman giving her testimony about Thomas’ sexual harassment to a white jury. Those who attacked Hill had the immediate advantage of not having to confront physical evidence or witnesses (Darwin). A commentator stated in normal hearings with no witness, “normal courtroom defense to such charge is to try to even the score by eliciting details that damage the accuser’s credibility and by testing various theories of her motivation” (Garment). This turned the ordeal into an attack on Hill’s credibility. This was easy to do with stereotypes.

The ordeal involved not only the stereotype of the Jezebel, but also the black matriarch. The black matriarch is the bad black mother who emasculates black men because she will not permit them to assume roles as black patriarchs (Collins 72). Black matriarchs have been held responsible for black men’s low educational achievements, inability to earn a living for their families, personality disorders, and delinquency (King 12). The black matriarch also applies to black women interested in their career and viewed as, “egotistical career climbers, better paid, better educated and more socially mobile than their male counterparts” (Ransby 169). We can look at the testimony for evidence of subversive use of these stereotypes by US Senators. The hypersexual Jezebel stereotype came out in full force during Thomas’ questioning by Orin Hatch. Hatch questioned Thomas if Hill ever asked him for rides home and then asked him inside. Hatch asked, “You never thought of any of this as anything more than normal for a friendly or professional conversation with a colleague. Am I correct on that or am I wrong?” (Bystrom et al 57). This question is an obvious attempt to conjure up the image of Hill aggressively pursuing Thomas. Hatch also took many opportunities to reread the most graphic portions of Hill’s testimony, implanting sexual imagery in any observer’s head. During the hearings white senators called her a heterosexual erotomaniac, a vengeful spurned woman, stridently aggressive, arrogant, ambitious, aloof, tough and opinionated (Darwin 199). Testimony from John Doggett claimed Hill fantasized about him (Id). This was thoroughly debunked days later (Abramson and Mayer 297). Hill’s questioners knew this testimony to be flimsy at best and that it would not be ruled admissible if given in an affidavit (Id at 296). This is direct evidence of her doubters attempting to discredit her through the use of racial stereotypes. They just wanted a man to testify Hill made passes at him, showing her to be a sexually aggressive Jezebel. They knew this testimony would not stand up but all they were worried about was public perception. All of these examples are directly attributable to the Jezebel and black matriarch stereotype used to discredit Hill.

One interesting facet of the hearings is the use of black male stereotypes against Hill. This was an interesting phenomenon because both the accuser and accused were black, but Thomas used racism as an excuse for his perceived mistreatment. Thomas used language conjuring up the imagery of slavery when he said, “I will not provide the rope for my own lynching or for further humiliation” (Flax 88). The largest bombshell came when he said, “This is a circus. It is a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and that unless you kow-tow to an older order this is what will happen to you, you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate, rather than hung from a tree” (Flax 89). To use this imagery was a brilliant move because it immediately shifted the sympathy to him and away from Hill. As argued earlier males have a monopoly on black history, and nothing is more apparent than the lynching of black males in the past. This is a perfect example of the casting aside of the black female point of view. Examining his statement, how is he distinguishing himself from Hill? She can apply to all of the ways Thomas describes himself. She, just as much as Thomas, thought for herself and did not kow-tow to an older order. She is a black conservative and served in a Republican administration. Testifying in front of the Senate committee shows she did not just kow-tow to an older order by accepting the status quo. She also thought for herself when she supported the nomination of Robert Bork. What Thomas did here was position himself as the black American involved in the case (Flax 90). By claiming he was the black American involved in using the lynching imagery, he implicitly denied the painful history of the black woman. The history of lynching was white men hanging black men for having sexual relations with white women. This lynching analogy does not hold up because both the hangman (Hill, not the white committee members) and victim were black. Furthermore, no black man was ever lynched for raping a black woman (Flax 90). The public commiserated with Thomas, thereby denying any potential claims Hill had about mistreatment due to race. Thomas had a long history of denying the ability to play the race card but chose to use it here to completely change the atmosphere of the hearing and discredit Hill in the process. Both the accuser and accused being black, and the male accuser succeeding in his claim of racism just shows how much Society threw away Hill’s perspective.

A final look at why the committee overlooked the black female perspective comes from Hill herself. In her opinion, the public did not believe her because she did not go in front of the committee with a patron (Hill 271). Thomas had the patronage of his nominee President Bush as well as the white senators defending him during the hearings. A patron is a powerful white person willing to vouch for her trustworthiness and worthiness (Id. at 276). In her opinion this is necessary if a black person is to effectively have their voice heard. This comes from the times of slavery and the need for slaves to have a white patron to do anything on their own volition. She points to its lasting effects remaining in the criminal justice system with the practice of the police’s refusal to release a black suspect until a white patron or institution aids them.

V. The Duke Lacrosse Case

A very recent case gives us an up to date look at how the media perpetuates the discrediting of black females. This case arises from a March 13, 2006 lacrosse party. The basic facts involved members of the school's lacrosse team hiring two strippers to perform at the home of several players. Although the events of the evening are hotly contested by the parties, one of the women alleged that she was raped, sodomized, strangled and beaten by three of the partygoers (Kosse 258). This case is germane because the accused are upper class white males while the accuser is a lower class black female. Because this was a high profile case, attempts were made to discredit the victim.

Susan Kosse preformed a lengthy analysis of the press coverage and found some interesting results. She found the media’s statements placed offenders (61%) in a better light than the victim (39%) (Kosse 269). In her study she looked for the Jezebel stereotype. “Primarily, the constant reference to the races of the people involved seemed unnecessary. The media's highlighting the fact that she was black and the men were white insinuates that this is relevant. In one article readers were even told that the men had requested a white and Hispanic dancer but received two black women, as if this somehow was important information to know.” (Id). She also found, “The media's constant reference to the woman as a stripper and exotic dancer created a problem because it took the focus away from the violent sexual allegations of rape, and instead focused on her conduct before the alleged violation. By bombarding the public with those terms, the myth that the woman provoked or deserved to be raped was reinforced” (Id). Again we find lasting imagery of the Jezebel. She continues with, “Such coverage promoted the myth that somehow strippers consent to being raped. Her being black made it that much easier to accept. Although one mention of her profession may be necessary to convey context for the events, repeating the term multiple times in an article becomes pejorative” (Id). This lines up directly with the previous arguments saying black female credibility is attacked by attributing a hypersexual nature to the accuser while also claiming her consent to rape. Criticism comes from Cash Michaels. He said the media only saw her as “trash,” a “false accuser,” “a hooker,” and a “stripper” instead of a “27-year-old-mother of two children, a second-year honor student at North Carolina Central University who hoped to become an attorney, an idealistic young woman who helped her ex-husband learn how to read, worked for low pay on a computer factory assembly line, cared for the elderly in a nursing home, and once enlisted in the U.S. Navy to serve her country” (Michaels).

Kosse even picked up on the media eschewing the black female perspective. She found, “Several important observations can be made about the media's treatment of the characters in this most recent high profile rape case. Like previous coverage of rape cases, the media seemed overly concerned with the effect the rape charges had on the men while all but ignoring the implications the event had on the woman's life. The Sports Illustrated ten-page article titled, “The Damage Done,” may be the best illustration. Although the writers mentioned in the first paragraph that the players, dancer and the university were forever changed, the article spent five full pages on the accused, the coach and the school with only thirteen paragraphs devoted to the accuser” (Kosse 272). This recent case clearly shows society still overlooks the black female in sexual assault cases. Language from the media shows the accuser’s credibility was attacked by constantly referring to her job as a stripper in an attempt to hypersexualize her.


VI. Conclusion

As the emblematic woman is white and the emblematic black is male, black women generally are not as easy to comprehend symbolically. (Painter 211) Looking at the history of black women in this country, we see them depicted as sex-crazed women who are not to be trusted. For hundreds of years the rape and dehumanizing of black women by treating them as property was not even illegal. Instead of looking at rape as the long practice of white slave owners on black women, society has transformed it to black men on white women, thereby cleansing the longer and more widespread practice from society’s consciousness. This paper shows how this treatment has a continuous effect to this day. Because of the systematic mistreatment and casting aside of the black female perspective, we now have disparate treatment of victims of different races in the most heinous of crimes. Not only that, society automatically questions the credibility of these victims based solely on the color of their skin. We look to the media’s portrayal of victims and see it is directly contributing to this callous indifference to the black woman’s plight. In one high profile case, we see how perceived racism against black men can even be used against black women. In another we see the media still portraying the Jezebel stereotype to this day. Perhaps we will soon see a movement urging society to take into perspective the black female point of view, thus finally promoting “liberty and justice for all.”