Today is the third day of deliberations at the Oklahoma County District Court. Eight White Men and four White Women have yet to reach a conclusion on the guilt of Racist Suspect and former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw; this suspected predator is charged with 36 counts, including oral sodomy, sexual battery, and six counts of first-degree rape. All thirteen victims are black females. OKC Artists For Justice co-founder Candice Liger appraised the closing arguments articulated by White defense attorney Scott Adams. Holtzclaw’s lawyer assessed Oklahoma City’s east side, Holtzclaw’s alleged “hunting ground” and home to a high percentage of the city’s black citizens. Liger reports that Adams told the all white jury that they didn’t know this place. “It’s nothing to see somebody walking at 2:30 in the morning high on pcp, drunk… This is the beacon of criminal behavior.” According to Liger, Adams insisted “people don’t call police on the east side. Not because they fear the police, but because they hate the police.” Liger’s evaluation was corroborated by a Jezebel report, which affirms that Adams’ closing argument suggested these black victims are a treacherous syndicate with an “agenda” to railroad and shakedown one of the “finest” officers and the Oklahoma City police department. This represents the most recent confirmation of Syreeta McFadden’s premise: only under the System of White Supremacy are dead black boys and violated black females put on trial for their own exploitation. Holtzclaw never testified. Meanwhile, more than a dozen black females where subjected to a month of skepticism and defamation. The Interracial Con Game states, “A White male has never been executed for raping a black female in the history of the U. S. – because White males raping black females was not (and still isn’t) considered a crime.” The sexual plunder of black bodies is an essential component of White culture. It’s difficult to conceive of an all White jury convicting Holtzclaw (any White person) for partaking in the ritual rape of black females. A tradition that views black bodies, “the whole world as the White man’s brothel.” For the last thirty days, Holtzclaw’s attorney assailed the credibility and humanity of these black females by belaboring the criminal history and substance dependency of several of the victims. Holtzclaw may have used this same reasoning while searching for vulnerable prey. Senior ACLU attorney Sandra Park told RH Reality Check reporter Kanya D’Almeda that officers like Holtzclaw “can use stringent drug laws to help perpetuate or commit sexual assault.” A 2005 ACLU report charges “racially targeted law enforcement practices, prosecutorial decisions, and sentencing policies” have reduced black female bodies to what the African American Policy Forum describes as “vessels for drugs.” Easy pickings for police predators. Oklahoma’s KOCO describes why one of Holtzclaw’s alleged victims, a 44-year-old black female, declined to report her abduction to police: “‘[I] didn't think anyone would believe me. I'm a drug addict.’ She said she dealt with the trauma by using more drugs. ‘The only way I knew how to deal with it was to get high to block it out.’” The Oklahoman’s Kyle Schwab documented a similar response from a different victim during the trial. “The defense attorney pointed out during the woman's testimony that she has past felony drug convictions. The attorney also noted the woman's ‘tired’ demeanor, asking if she currently was under the influence of drugs. The woman said she used crack cocaine a few days before Tuesday's testimony. She said she relapsed because the trial has taken a toll on her.” It should be noted that while these black females have been stigmatized and discredited for their drug afflictions, there’s a swelling movement for a “gentler war on drugs.” Skyrocketing numbers of White heroin addicts and prescription pill abusers warrant compassion, unlike the decades of “pathologizing of black people” in the name of combating the scourge of narcotics. But run-ins with the law and drug usage obfuscate the primary reason why Holtzclaw purportedly terrorized these females and why many are justifiably reluctant to believe that a dozen Whites will deliver a conviction. The rape of black females – black people in general – is a sacred Racist tradition. Ned and Constance Sublette’s 2015 publication, The American Slave Coast: A History Of The Slave Breeding Industry, documents that one of the most lucrative institutions of colonial America was the exploitation and desecration of black procreation. Chapter two of the text is titled: “The Capitalized Womb.” Constance explains how “the weight of all this fell upon [black] wombs.” There is an explicit, unbroken pattern of commodification and defiling of black females from the antebellum plantation to the fictitious White House of ABC’s hit series, Scandal. “The sexual exploitation of black women by White Men had its roots in slavery and continued throughout the better part of the twentieth century,” writes Danielle McGuire in At The Dark End Of The Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance. “When African Americans tested their freedom during Reconstruction, former slaverholders and their sympathizers used rape as a ‘weapon of terror’ to dominate the bodies and minds of African–American men and women.” It’s en vogue for many scholars to name-drop Claudette Colvin as a courageous and ignored precursor to Rosa Parks and the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. Her commentary in Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice was decades before the Holtzclaw trial, but remains depressingly applicable. “Black girls were extremely vulnerable. My mother and my grandmother told me never to go anywhere with a White Man no matter what. I grew up hearing horror story after horror story about black girls who were raped by White Men, and how they never got justice either. When A White Man raped a black girl – something that happened all the time – it was just his word against hers, and no one would ever believe her. The White Man always got off.” Holtzclaw has one White parent and one non-white parent. But a black victim testified under oath that he asked her: “Is this the first time you sucked a White cock?” Last week marked the 60-year anniversary of Parks’ refusal to forfeit her seat to a White passenger. Presidential hopeful and Racist Suspect Hillary Clinton along with legions of Whites professed their admiration and connection to the tired negro seamstress. But historian Jeanne Theoharis documents that Whites regularly served Parks the same sexualized contempt as Holtzclaw’s alleged victims. In the middle of the Montgomery boycott, a White reporter “peppered her with a series of aggressive questions accusing her of seeking publicity, impugning her morality, and referring to her as a prostitute,” writes Theoharis. Because the rape of black bodies is at the core of White culture, the projection and branding of black females as whores and sexual deviants is constant. This is why Kerry Washington’s hit series, Scandal, must depict a black female as the White president’s “sidepiece.” And this show is followed by Viola Davis’ How To Get Away With Murder. Whites honored Davis as the first black actress to receive an Emmy for a lead role in a drama; a role where her White husband describes her as a “disgusting slut” who’s only use is “dirty, rough sex I’m too ashamed to tell anyone about.”
These depictions of black females are predictable and necessary for a Racist culture founded on the molestation of black bodies. White Supremacy is engineered to produce Holtzclaws and all white juries to exonerate them. A conviction would contradict centuries of White rapist entitlement enjoyed by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Strom Thurmond, Domonique Strauss-Kahn, and now Holtzclaw.
... And Harriet Tubman, where now the hip-hop people have now put on a pornographic movie about her. And this guy—I forgot his name, [James] McBride or something, The New York Times is in there with this glowing two-page review of his book, talking about Frederick Douglass was a drunk... and isn’t that funny? So, I think now there’s some kind of concerted effort in the cultural environment to make fun of anything that historically would give people any kind of courage or nerve or desire to fight. I don’t think it’s accidental. - Gloria Richardson
The New York Magazine features a lengthy interview with actor, comedian and Victim of Racism, Chris Rock. The Saturday Night Live alumnus and creator of Good Hair (2009) reflected on Ferguson, Bill Cosby, the notion of "progress" as it relates to Racism, and raising black girls while Sasha and Malia Obama reside in The White House. Rock's profession and body of work inform what one can realistically expect him to say about black people, Racism in general. Mychal Denzel Smith submitted a spectacular assessment of how Whites have enthusiastically rewarded Rock and many other Victims of Racism for disparaging melanin-rich humans. Bring The Pain. Abandon #BlackSelfRespect, mock collective black trauma for White entertainment, and your bank balance will never be niggardly. This verbose exchange has agendas. Promoting Rock's new film (Top Five) is a key objective, but the primary aim is to appease, reassure and glorify Whites. There is more White flattery than excuses and donations for the White killers of Michael Brown, Jr. and Eric Garner. Joan Rivers is a "great person, underrated comedian." Rock declares his "love" for Bill Maher, and can't deny that Top Five "is almost like an homage to Woody Allen." The White collective dominates the globe, and a sizable portion of dark folks are required to brown-nose and pay tributes to pale folks for fewer nickles thank Mr. Rock. That's White Power, Racism. White Power also dictates that two individuals named in this report have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct, but only one is recognized as a suspected predator. Bill Cosby is practically declared deceased alongside Rivers and Robin Williams. Stick a pitchfork in his career. The best we can do is hope the allegations aren't true. The cinema and career of Woody Allen are celebrated with no regard for the lingering allegations of pedophilia. Fawning aside, Rock slips in profound reflections on Racist White Pathology:
My mother tells stories of growing up in Andrews, South Carolina, and the black people had to go to the vet to get their teeth pulled out. And you still had to go to the back door, because if the white people knew the vet had used his instruments on black people, they wouldn’t take their pets to the vet. This is not some person I read about. This is my mother.
Pause for Dr. Maya Angelou (I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings). "Bony T," Rock's character from Boomerang (1992), states that "progress" has allowed for "the nicest white people that America has ever produced." Ostensibly, millennial Whites - like his daughters' classmates - have greater immunity to the "disease" of Racism that infected previous eras when "We [WHITES] were hanging black people." [Lennon Lacy? Frederick Jermaine Carter? Khalid Flimban?] However, Rock is still black, and, apparently, justifiably fearful that even Whites raised on Madagascar (2005) might be the new millennium Mistress Epps or Bull Connor.
I almost cry every day. I drop my kids off and watch them in the school with all these mostly white kids, and I got to tell you, I drill them every day: Did anything happen today? Did anybody say anything? They look at me like I am crazy.
Perhaps Mr. Rock and his daughters should peruse Lawrence Otis Graham's recent disclosure that cocooning his black offspring in prestigious White academies did not shield them from White Terrorism and it made them reluctant to discuss or acknowledge the reality - and pain - of Racism. Truth being that Whites have complete, unadulterated contempt for black people, dead or alive. NPR's Allison Keyes produced a 2013 report on efforts to preserve African American burial grounds:
A lot of other African-American cemeteries in D.C. today are under parking lots. They're under buildings, they're under schools. They'll never be remembered or found. William and Mary anthropology professor Michael Blakey is one of the
leading experts on African and African-American burial grounds in the
country. He says the ritual treatment of the dead is one of the
fundamental definitions of humankind.
Four and a half hours. Counter-Racist soldier Gloria Richardson charged that there is a concerted, methodical effort to eviscerate black history. Laying waste to black cemeteries and maligning black ancestors is a part of this campaign. Chris Rock's analogy of Rosa Parks is another illustration of this disgraceful barrage.
I always call Ellen DeGeneres the gay Rosa Parks. If Rosa Parks had one of the most popular daytime TV shows, I’m sure the civil-rights movement would’ve moved a little bit faster too.
Rock's commentary is glaringly inconsistent with the proclamations of his Everybody Hates Chris co-star, Tyler James Williams, who recently declared that "the African American community is notoriously homophobic." But black is gay. That concept and image has been promoted ad nauseam and with tremendous enthusiasm. During the summer of 2014, PBS released The New Black, which sustained the attack on black people as the greatest homophobes to ever breathe, while simultaneously perpetuating the equation of black and gay. Time magazine showcased Laverne Cox to poignantly make LGBT Rights synonymous with black people, Civil Rights. Cox has been the centerpiece of Netflix's juggernaut, Orange Is The New Black - where black people are again connected to crime and incarceration as well as "homosexual" and "transgender" behavior. This is one aspect of the White Supremacist offensive. Victims of Racism are being used to advance and nurture this objective. Consciously or subconsciously some black people have deduced that Whites will be less hostile and/or more generous with resources if they shill for gay issues. That's White Power, Racism. But Rosa Parks? Rosa Parks who battled to free the Scottsboro Boys? Rosa Parks who married, lived with, and was part of a black collective committed to armed self defense and the preservation of black life? Rosa Parks who ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott being emulated in Ferguson, Missouri? Rosa Parks who risked her life to defend black females who were raped by White brutes because "she knew [White] sexual violence sat at the core of white supremacy." [Danielle McGuire, At The Dark End Of The Street pg. 56] Rosa Parks who fought off a White Rapist as a teen? Rosa Parks who was forced to flee Alabama because of White Terrorists' relentless threats to assassinate her?
Rosa Parks, for example, constantly received calls from angry whites who yelled "Die, nigger!" whenever she or her husband picked up the phone. Like other blacks committed to the freedom struggle, Rosa Parks lost her job and was blacklisted in Montgomery, as were her husband and mother. After an especially vicious death threat in the summer of 1957, Parks called her cousin in Detroit sobbing. "Rosie, get the hell out of Montgomery," he urged. "Raymond's right; Whitey is going to kill you." (McGuire, pg. 120)
This legacy is equal to Ellen DeGeneres? The White woman who peeled off $39 million for a California palace? Ellen DeGeneres who was just accused of practicing Racism during the 2014 World Cup? She joked about being ignorant of Ghana's geographic location. All of Africa is "3rd World," so Ghana might not even be on the same planet with Whitefolks. Rock's comparison is inaccurate, untenable, and should guarantee that he does not have a black patron for the remainder of his Hollywood career. It's likely that Whites encouraged and/or applauded Russell Simmons mocking Harriet Tubman as a whore. James McBride penned Frederick Douglass as a boozehound in The Good Lord Bird, and Whites lionized his effort with the 2013 National Book Award; the bestseller is scheduled to be adapted to the big screen starring Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith's son, Jaden. Whites might have similar laurels for Rock, but nothing Whites offer trumps #BlackSelfRespect.
An audience that’s not laughing is the biggest indictment that something’s too far. No comedian’s ever done a joke that bombs all the time and kept doing it.
Minimizing, obscuring or trivializing the life force of Rosa Parks is a
"joke" that bombs eternally. Where is the Sandman when you need him?
