Daniel Holtzclaw: The Rape Of Black Bodies Is White Culture

Prosecution highlighted #Holtzclaw's aggressiveness and intent of sexual gratification with quotes from survivors. pic.twitter.com/QdRETDygaR

— OKCARTISTS4JUSTICE (@OKCART4JUSTICE) December 7, 2015

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.

Why Racists Gave Viola Davis An Emmy #HTGAWM

Emmy-winning Viola Davis cantbreathe

Viola Davis is a superb illustration of the labor required for #BlackSelfRespect. White Terrorism saturates her life, mandates that “classic beauty” be anything but black. She testifies to unrelenting abuse in the 2011 documentary Dark Girls, remembering how she was “constantly being called ‘black ugly nigger’ — those words together.” 

This spiritual molestation is common for black people around the globe and helps explain the vicarious adulation so many black females experienced when Davis became the first African American female to win an Emmy for her lead role in the ABC drama How To Get Away With Murder. Danielle Moodie-Mills writes that during Davis’ moment of unprecedented accomplishment, “She stood on that stage, fierce, beautiful and firm in her blackness and womaness.” She paid homage to “General” Harriet Tubman as “she called out racism and challenged a system that refuses to see black women as whole.” 

Davis and HTGAWM executive producer Shonda Rhimes are lauded for subverting racist projections of black people and producing opportunities for black actresses to be broadcast as commanding, professional, and valued. 

But even though HTGAWM is a ShondaLand production, Rhimes did not write or create this series. Those credits belong to a gay White man, Peter Nowalk. He praises Rhimes as his guru and gushes about the lessons learned from years collaborating on her other lucrative franchises, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. There’s widespread gratitude for Nowalk devising the character Annalise Keating that allowed Julliard-trained Davis to make history. 

Yet her unparalleled triumph felt familiar. 

Davis’ victory seemed an encore of Denzel Washington and Halle Berry palming 2002 Oscars for exemplary portrayals of black hooliganism and debauchery. Nowalk repackages and camouflages worn-out Racist concepts of blacks toiling to help whitefolks and presents profoundly anti-black moments in the limited scenes when Davis is sans wig, unadulterated black. At its lowest, black female sexuality is – as usual – cast as malignant and scandalous. 

One of Davis’ signature works is her 2011 Oscar-nominated portrayal of The Help’s Aibileen Clark, a servant for a White Supremacist family in 1960’s Mississippi. In spite of the film’s success, Davis candidly observes another constant: “I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish… Then you’re going to be hungry for your next role, which is going to be absolutely the same. That’s the truth.” Nowalk’s debut project was “her shot at the anti-mammy,” according to GQ contributor Amy Wallace. Annalise Keating represents “a flinty, stylish defense lawyer and law professor,” and a scarce opening to animate a black female character as “cerebral and alluring… with a handsome husband and a lover on the side.” Ostensibly, Nowalk unshackled Davis from a racist industry, that, according to Kirsten West Savali, “pathologizes, reduces and co-opts blackness at every turn, especially black womanhood.” 

But Annalise’s time and energy is almost exclusively in service to Whites. She’s an attorney extraordinaire with blouses worth more than Aibileen’s house. Other than one humdinger of an exception, black people are not privy to her counsel. Whites are the sole beneficiaries of her legal acumen, and the bulk of her customers aren’t even “good” Whitefolks. She successfully, ruthlessly defends White drug traffickers, alleged White sex offenders, admitted and suspected White killers. Her clientele is a smorgasbord of white-on-white crime. Mimicking Hattie McDaniel’s venerated contribution to Gone With The Wind, Annalise has no children and devotes the bulk of her time to the maintenance of unscrupulous white lives. 

Now, about that humdinger. 

The show’s sixth episode is the lone outlier, the only time Nowalk’s lead character devotes her energies to aiding black people. Keating successfully liberates a death row inmate (David Allen) who had been wrongly caged for decades. Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya digests the plot of the episode and why it signifies vintage ShondaLand entertainment: 

“A white senator used Allen as a pawn to gain political power and gentrify an inner-city [black] area for financial gain. Annalise loudly condemns the racialized nature of the Senator’s scheme in one of the best Viola Davis moments in an episode full of spot-on Davis moments (seriously, this is going to be her Emmy reel episode, right?).” 

Unfortunately, Racists don’t permit black people to enjoy a full glass. They must kick it over. Before one can appreciate a primetime drama with the courage to indict a White man for the deliberate caging of black bodies, we’re reminded that Annalise is still primarily concerned with the well being of whitefolks. Her white husband specifically. 

Her lying, adulterous, womanizing, murderous, “handsome,” White husband. 

Following her courtroom conquest, she jettisons her makeup and straight hair - props to imply strength. She confesses that she’s been lying, planting evidence, and framing the innocent to protect her guilty White spouse, Sam Keating. The scene concludes with Davis’ character dissolving into a whimpering puddle while declaring her need for psychopath Sam ad infinitum. 

The politics of black hair exponentially magnify the significance of this scene and all other settings when Annalise reveals her natural. Franchesca Ramsey reminds us “there are very few black women on TV wearing their natural hair.” “There's a long, complicated history of black women being told by society [Whites] that their natural hair is unprofessional, ugly, distracting, and a whole host of other insults.” In another display of #BlackSelfRespect, Davis lobbied to have HTGAWM include her unprocessed do. It’s fascinating to deconstruct Nowalk’s politicking of black hair. 

Upadhyaya unpacks the unmasking: “Annalise sits at her vanity and slowly peels back her layers. She removes her wig, her eyelashes, her makeup, never breaking eye contact with the reflection of her natural self. It’s an intimate, powerful moment television doesn’t often show: A black woman removing all the elements White Supremacy tells her she has to wear to be beautiful, successful, powerful. And let’s not forget that that wasn’t just Annalise taking it off: It was Davis, too...” 

What happens in the narrative at this moment? Sam admits to having an affair with a dead blond girl. More layers are unearthed as the audience discovers that before they were married, Sam was her therapist – helping Annalise cope with the trauma of child rape. He was previously married, but had an affair with Annalise. She accurately diagnoses his fetish for mistresses who are “weak, broken, messes that” require his straightening. The scene ends with Sam violently subduing and momentarily smothering his black wife. 

Annalise’ authentic locks re-emerge at the top of episode six. Wes, a law student and main character played by Harry Potter star Alfred Enoch, determines that his law professor is lying to protect her murderous white husband. He confronts Annalise and her natural hair to declare explicitly and repeatedly that she is “disgusting.” 

This is not “anti-mammy” or “anti-racism;” this is the routine war to insist that black females be rebuked, abused, and de-feminized at all times. 

The anti-blackness of Nowalk’s series is most forcefully emphasized in the presentation of black female sexuality. During a Variety interview, he disclosed, “Some of the characters are very driven by sex and I think that’s cool. I think Annalise — and Viola and I talk about it — she’s definitely driven by sex.” The problem becomes blatant in how Nowalk animates Annalise’s sexuality. 

Her marriage – again, her husband's a White killer – began as an affair with a married man. His infidelity continues, while she’s stepping out with a dying cancer patient’s husband. And she doesn’t merely have adulterous sex with this black male, she betrays him continually, has him incarcerated unjustly, and decimates his life. This is not a critique born of “respectability politics.” This is an emphatic restatement of Melissa Harris-Perry’s conclusion that “the implications of sexual images for black American women are different.” “The sexualized myths of black women have conspired to narrow the political and social world for sisters.” How To Get Away With Murder was supposed to be beyond those confines. 

Alessandra Stanley helped launch the series when her contentious New York Times piece described Davis as “darker-skinned and less classically beautiful.” Earlier in the same paragraph she writes, “As Annalise, Ms. Davis, 49, is sexual and even sexy, in a slightly menacing way.” Unarmed black teens like Renisha McBride and Michael Brown Jr. are “menacing.” Is the sexuality of primetime, Emmy-winning White actresses branded as “menacing”? The scripting of Annalise’s promiscuity promotes Stanley’s perception. 

This is best illustrated during the first season's winter finale. After an ugly verbal dispute and a second round of domestic abuse, Annalise’s White husband gives a mic drop and reminds us that black females are disgusting. 

“You're nothing but a piece of ass. That's what I saw when I first talked to you in the office that day. Because I knew you would put out. That's all you're really good for. Dirty, rough sex I'm too ashamed to tell anyone about. That's how foul you are. You disgusting slut.” 

Should this be the Emmy reel episode?