feminist blogs

What does everyone think about the USA network's new campaign, called "Characters Unite"? It urges people to "take the pledge" to combat prejudice and discrimination. I saw an ad for it while watching USA, and it features all different people, including people of color, people with disabilities, and even a same-sex couple speaking out against hatred. I think it's a pretty bold move on USA's part, especially the bit that promotes same-sex marriage. It's also a very well-done commercial.

Visit charactersunite.com to watch the "take the pledge" video and also, if you want, take the pledge yourself.

by Pam Spaulding

Note to Kansas U.S. Representative Lynn Jenkins…

When you say something as ridiculous as this:

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope," Jenkins said. "I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington."

An apology of this nature really doesn't help much.

"Obviously I was discussing the future of the Republican Party in response to a question about is there any hope for Republicans," Jenkins said. "I was explaining that there are some bright lights in the House, and I was unaware of any negative connotation. If I offended somebody, obviously I apologize."

BZZZZZT...FAIL-O-RAMA. That bit of jack*ssery only confirms you meant what you said the first time around—and that you need a dunce cap. Is the world of the GOP so snow white that she had NO IDEA about the racial history of the phrase Great White Hope? Nevermind.

Actually, check out this irony over at DKos - the original Great White Hope, Jess Willard, who was picked to defeat the big black buck champion Jack Johnson (and lost), was born in Jenkins' district. 30 miles from where the not-so-enlighted Congresswoman grew up - St. Clere, Kansas. And not too far from Topeka, home of the Westboro Baptist Klan. ROTFLOL.

There's an article in today's New York Times about Chris Rock's much anticipated new documentary, Good Hair, which explores black women's complex relationship with hair and all the historic, racial, economic, gendered, and of course comedic, connotations. It won the jury prize at Sundance. The trailer:

In the Times article, Ingrid Banks, an associate professor of black studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, breaks it down: "For black women, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you've got straight hair, you're pegged as selling out. If you don't straighten your hair," she said, "you're seen as not practicing appropriate grooming practices."

There is so much at stake here. Not only are black women subjected to and sometimes perpetuate a system that infuses their hair choices with all sorts of social and political implications, but there are major economic implications as well. The Times article reports that "Last year, sales of home relaxers totaled $45.6 million (excluding Wal-Mart), according to Mintel, a market research firm, a figure that has held steady in recent years."

Things aren't getting cheaper, but they may be getting more complicated:

Noliwe M. Rooks, the associate director of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton, had many conversations about what it meant when the hair of Sasha and Malia Obama was pressed straight. "Unlike earlier times," the conclusion wasn't "clearly she had sold out, or she's saying straight hair is better," Professor Rooks said. "There's a complexity to who we are now. There wasn't an easy answer to why."

Thanks to reader Rachel for the reminder.

by Pam Spaulding

Boy, we have seen the racist dog whistle become quite audible these days, but when called out these Rethugs still find a way to deny that’s what’s going on.

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins offered encouragement to conservatives at a town hall forum that the Republican Party would embrace a “great white hope” capable of thwarting the political agenda endorsed by Democrats who control Congress and President Barack Obama.

Jenkins, a Topeka Republican in her first term in Congress, shared thoughts about the GOP’s political future during an Aug. 19 forum at Fisher Community Center in the northeast Kansas community of Hiawatha.

...”Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope,” Jenkins said to the crowd. “I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”

It’s worth noting that all of the Republicans Jenkins points out as prospects (Cantor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.) are white. Just a coinkydink. And here comes the hilarious “it’s not racist” denial from the spokesbot for Jenkins, Mary Geiger:

Mary Geiger, a spokeswoman for Jenkins, said the reference to a great white hope wasn’t meant to denote a preference by Jenkins for politicians of a particular “race, creed or any background.” Jenkins was expressing faith fellow GOP representatives in the House would be key players in returning Republicans to a leadership role in Washington, Geiger said.

“There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope,” Geiger said. “What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They’re bright lights within the party.”

Big, bright white Broadway lights, apparently; the Topeka Capital Journal’s Tim Carpenter pointed out the obvious.

The phrase “great white hope” is frequently tied to racist attitudes permeating the United States when heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson fought in the early 1900s. Reaction to the first black man to reign as champion was intense enough to build support for a campaign to find a white fighter capable of reclaiming the title from Johnson.

by Pam Spaulding

You think about the legacy of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who actually did something to strengthen the rights of minorities and the poor during his long tenure in the Senate. And then you have people like Glenn Beck, who is a pimple on the *ss of society, with raging hateful “fans” who show how resistant this country is to address its issues with race. It’s all spilling out now...

Devona Walker  has some excellent news about race-baiting loudmouth Glenn Beck, who is "out of the office" for a while as the boycott against the commentator has resulted in an exodus of advertisers.

During Beck’s absence, the group behind the boycott increased corporate participation to 36. “There hasn't been an exodus of advertisers in response to an organized effort like this in decades,” James Rucker of ColorofChange.org said.

I suspect the reason this campaign was so successful is that reasonable people can see right through Beck’s thinly veiled contempt. They can see the level of racism and violence he incites. Based upon responses from the racist fringe in e-mails to me, it appears they can see it, too.

...The outcome of Beck’s constant, ultra right-wing and sometimes racist fear-mongering and race-baiting is that the racist fringe feel as if they have found a spokesman.

Heh—she got a taste of Freeper swamp in her inbox. Look at this gem:

“Didn't you know that having blacks boycott a business would be a welcome relief to the business owner? Who in hell wants them around? They're loud, crude, stupid, with I.Q.'s lower than any other race, and they have the most disgusting personalities ever.”

The writer eventually announced a white supremacist-backed counter boycott against companies who have pulled ads from Beck’s show. In his words, they will not allow leftist liberals and minorities of sub-par intelligence to “harm their commentator.”

I have written repeatedly about the offensive nature of PeTA’S campaigns because I find that their approach is often dehumanizing.  Much of the time, they buttress their position by saying that we are no different than animals and therefore are undeserving of special treatment.   This line of thought does not solely apply to PeTA.  Many animal rights groups are fond of pointing out that humans are also animals.  This is a biological fact, however; using it to defend your position can be extremely problematic and it is rarely to ever acknowledged as such.

For centuries, POC have been compared to animals, as a way to dehumanize us.  Telling POC that we are the same as animals cannot be taken in a positive light.  We can all agree that animals deserve to be treated with respect and love.  They are vulnerable and we are the top of the food chain.  Very few people would openly say that they approve of cruel slaughter methods or housing them in terrible conditions.  The more that we can improve conditions that animals live in the better, however; until we can get to a point where there is equality amongst the human race, demanding such equality between humans and animals is going to be an issue.

It was just last year that Obama was depicted as a chimp in the post.   A German zoo named a monkey after him.  A bar decided to sell t-shirts with Obama depicted as Curious George.   Not to be outdone, Former U.S. Sen. Zell Miller commented, “Rahm Emanuel needs to put “Gorilla Glue” on his chair to keep him in the Oval Office”. To ensure that Michelle Obama felt included, Rusty Pass, a state Republican activist, claimed that an escaped gorilla was an ancestor of the first lady.

Who could forget Howard Cosell with the famous quip, “Look at the little monkey run,”   during a Monday night national football broadcast.

Chihuahua’s are heavily associated with Latino’s (see Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and Disney’s Oliver). Who could forget that lovely little Taco Bell dog.    In fact almost every time you see a Chihuahua in the media, one can almost be certain that there will be a connection between it and Latino’s

With the rise in Islamophobia, camel jockey became a very popular slur.  Often this terms competes with sand nigger, for the most derogatory term to refer to people from the Middle East.

When the largely white run animal rights groups approach people of color for support, is it any wonder that we bristle when we are once again told that we are just like animals.  Whiteness can afford such a comparison because it is still the dominant and the norm.  It is not reduced by such a comparison because its power has become socially entrenched and its humanity validated.

Like any other social organization, these animal rights groups are largely White run and this leads to a form of myopia in organizing.  They cannot readily see the connection between race and animal rights or why certain phrases may be offensive to people of color.  They may scream biology until the end of time but we remember when such comparisons were used to justify slavery, rape, and segregation.  For as long as my skin is Black I will be a devoted speciesist.  My dignity and humanity demand no less.

Cross posted from Womanist Musings

1. Officer Thomas Tolstoy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Cont’d.)

You may remember Officer Thomas Tolstoy, the serial rapist on Officer Jeffrey Cujdik’s elite narco-police shake-down squad, who, besides participating in repeated evidence-less paramilitary drug raids, also repeatedly took the opportunity to pull women aside during these hyperviolent home invasions and sexually assault them. The police department’s response to three independent complaints from April 2008 to February 2009 was to temporarily place Tolstoy on desk duty (from October 2008 to January 2009), then put him back on the street to do more drug raids with Cujdik. The other stories about Cujdik’s wolfpack appeared in local newspapers in March 2009; Tolstoy was finally put back on desk duty in May 2009. Meanwhile, while Tolstoy is rewarded for his sexual assaults with an easy desk job, he continues to receive not only his regular salary of $57,800, but also thousands of dollars in overtime pay for sitting his ass on a court-house bench while the DA extends subpoenas on tainted drug cases in which he will almost certainly never testify. The bill for maintaining Tolstoy in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed will, of course, be sent along to Philadelphia taxpayers, including Tolstoy’s three known victims. Deputy District Attorney John Delaney explains that the D.A.’s office continues to issue these money-wasting subpoenas on dead-end cases because We want to maintain the status quo. No doubt.

2. Police Chief Michael Classey, Atlantic Beach, Florida.

The city government in Atlantic Beach, Florida hired a lawyer, allegedly to investigate charges that chief Michael Classey had forced unwanted sexual contact on a female officer, Renee Jackson, who works sex crimes for the department. Instead, the lawyer put together a legal brief to defend the city from a lawsuit for sexual harassment — a charge that Jackson never made. Both the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have refused to investigate the charges. Professional courtesy, I guess.

3. Deputy Gary C. Handley, Rogers County Sheriff’s Office, Rogers County, Oklahoma.

Earlier this month, Deputy Gary C. Handley turned himself in to face charges on one county of sexual battery for forcing unwanted inappropriate touching on a female courthouse employee.

4. Officer Jeffrey John Sung. San Francisco Police Department. San Francisco, California.

Earlier this month, veteran San Francisco motorcycle officer Jeffrey John Sung plead not guilty to charges for sexual battery and false imprisonment without violence [sic] for grabbing a female friend in her home, forcing unwanted groping on her while he talked about having sex with her, and refusing to let her leave when she tried to get away. When the victim managed to break free and call a relative for help, he ran away and left on his government-issue police motorcycle. Sung’s lawyer has told the media that it was a misunderstanding of sorts.

5. Officer Roberto Pagan. Staten Island, New York.

Roberto Pagan, a patrol cop working for city government police on Staten Island, was suspended without pay last week after he started choking his girlfriend and then punched her in the eye during an argument on a public street. He has been suspended without pay and is facing misdemeanor charges; since he is a cop, this batterer was released on his own recognizance pending trial.

6. Officer Johnnie K. Hicks. Newport News, Virginia.

Last week, Johnnie K. Hicks, a cop working for the Newport News city government’s police force on the South Preinct High Impact Patrol Unit, was arrested for assaulting a woman in her home around 2:00am and brandishing a gun. While the Incident is being Internally Investigated by his coworkers, Hicks is being given a paid vacation at taxpayer expense.

7. Deputy Brian Gillespie. Broward Sheriff’s Office. Oakland Park, Florida.

Last week, Deputy Brian Gillespie, a cop patrolling turf in Oakland Park, Florida for the Broward County government’s sheriff’s office, was arrested and charged with domestic violence battery after he grabbed his wife’s arm during an argument, in order to force her not to leave the house without his permission, and then punched her several times and threw her down two steps onto the floor. This dangerous batterer has been given a paid vacation, at taxpayer expense, while under investigation, and was released from jail on a $250 bond.

8. Chief Deputy David E. Gidley. Tucker County Sheriff’s Department. Tucker County, West Virginia.

Earlier this month, while he was on duty and in police uniform, Chief Deputy David E. Gidley, a cop working for the Tucker County government’s police force, drove out in his police car to confront his estranged wife; in the course of an argument, he grabbed her by the arm hard enough to leave marks, and then chased her around her car while waving his ASP tactical baton and beating on her car with it. Unhinged wife-beater Chief Deputy David Gidley has been arraigned on misdemeanor assault and domestic battery charges, and has been released on a $600 personal recognizance bond.

9. Police Chief Robert Peterson. Maysville Police Department, Maysville, Oklahoma.

Earlier this month, the Maysville city government decided to fire boss cop Robert Peterson, the chief of their government police force, after witnesses (including two fellow cops) saw him slap his girlfriend in the face during an argument outside of their apartment.

10. Police Chief Anthony Batts. Oakland Police Department. Oakland, California.

In California, on the other hand, city governments don’t even maintain those minimal standards. Anthony Batts, formerly a cop working for the Long Beach city government’s police department, had at least four crime reports taken against him for domestic violence charges in the cities of Long Beach, San Pedro, and San Diego. At one point he gave his then-wife, Laura Richardson-Batts, a black eye; she later sought refuge in a friend’s house to get away from him. That didn’t stop Batts from being promoted by the Long Beach city government to chief of police, and once he was, he put the domestic violence reports under lock and key in the police chief’s office and altered reports to conceal their contents. Other cops working under him kept copies of the originals and used the reports to blackmail Batts to insulate themselves from disciplinary actions during a scandal over unprofessional conduct and retaliation and vandalism against whistleblowers within the department. Batts’s domestic violence history has caused him problems in securing FBI security clearances and in maintaining his permit to carry a firearm. None of which, of course, has stopped the corrupt wife-beater Anthony Batts from being named chief of police for the city government in Oakland, California.

11. Officer Ronald Montgomery. Tulsa Police Department. Bixby, Oklahoma.

Officer Ronald Montgomery, a cop working for the Tulsa city government’s police force, was arrested earlier this month for allegedly beating his wife and pointing his government-issued gun at her during an argument in front of their infant son and 8-year-old daughter. His wife went to the hospital with bruising and swelling to her arm and wrist; Officer Ronald Montgomery claims that he had not touched her during the argument. This dangerous batterer, who beat a woman and pointed a loaded gun at her during an argument, is currently roaming free on $11,500 bond.

12. Police Officer Sam Parker. Lafayette Police Department. Lafayette, Georgia.

Sam Parker, a cop formerly working for the Lafayette city government’s police force, is currently on trial on charges he abducted and murdered his ex-wife, Theresa Parker. The story this past Friday was that a former coworker, a Lafayette cop named Stacey Meeks, testified that Officer Sam Parker spent years openly bragging about killing people while on the job, and kept trophies to show off from people he had killed, such as the lethal bullet and crime scene photos from the killing. According to Meeks, Officer Sam Parker also carried a loaded weapon to the Grand Jury and said he planned to go out in a hail of bullets rather than get arrested if the jury voted to indict. After another Incident in 2003 where Officer Sam Parker fired off his gun on the job, several shrinks ruled him homicidal; Officer Sam Parker bragged about that with his coworkers, too. He also repeatedly watch Officer Sam Parker use chokeholds to take people down while on the job. None of this deranged, attention-seeking, hyperviolent behavior seems to have endangered his position with the Lafayette city government’s Police Department, or to have caused any legal consequences whatsoever for Officer Sam Parker; I wouldn’t be surprised if he expected no more consequences when he went on to murder his wife.

13. Officer Jared Rohrig, Orange Police Department, Orange, Connecticut.

In Milford, Connecticut, Officer Jared Rohrig, a cop working for the Orange city government’s police force, posed as his twin brother Joe to deceive his girlfriend into having sex with him. She realized while they were having sex that he wasn’t Joe, and tried to get up and leave, so he grabbed her by the arms, threw her down, and forced her to continue having sex with him while she cried and struggled to push him off of her. The woman reported the rape to the government police three days later; Rohrig was given a paid vacation from his job starting the next day pending the result of an Internal Investigation.

14. Officer Matthew Raymond, Eliot, Maine.

In Maine, Officer Matthew Raymond was allowed to take a two-month-long paid vacation (to keep getting paid while using up vacation and sick time) before finally losing his job yesterday, so that he could continue to extract his $45,000/year regular salary from perfectly innocent Eliot taxpayers, while awaiting trial on charges of domestic violence stalking against his ex-lover. Besides common stalking behaviors like showing up constantly at her hous, tracking her whereabouts, and incessantly calling her wherever she went, Officer Matthew Raymond also specifically used his legal privileges as a police officer to intimidate her and facilitate the stalking. After she moved out and went to live in another town to get away from him, he parked his marked police cruiser outside her house at least 68 times within a two-month period. He also used his police car, and his legal powers of detention and arrest, to force her to pull her car over so that he could ask her to come back to him.

15. Officer Jeffrey Luff. Bakersfield Police Department. Bakersfield, California.

Last month, Officer Jeffrey Luff was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor sexual battery committed while in uniform and on duty. He went out on a call to break up a loud party, which turned out to be a lingerie party; he then drove out to an after-party later that night and picked up two women there who he offered to drive back to where the first party had been. Then he took opportunity to grab one of the women’s buttocks and genitals without her permission.

16. State Trooper Derek S. Snavely, West Virginia State Police, Jefferson West Virginia.

Last November, State Trooper Derek S. Snavely pulled a woman on a chickenshit traffic stop (the claim is that she was driving left of the center line). He used the threat of a bogus DUI arrest (which would have cost the woman her job) and getting her car towed to detain her, force her to kiss him and unbutton her blouse, and then take him back to her house, where he repeatedly raped her. The story’s in the news now because his victim recently filed a civil-rights lawsuit after State Police Internally Investigated the Incident and the government prosecutor decided — in spite of records from home surveillance cameras and text messages sent by Trooper Derek S. Snavely to his victim’s cell phone — not to press any criminal charges.

17. Unnamed officer. Dunbar Police Department, Dunbar, West Virginia.

A woman in her 20s has come forward, through a public statement from her lawyer, with allegations that a police officer working for the Dunbar city government’s police force used intimidation and the threat of legal charges to force her to have sex with him, after pulling her over on a routine traffic stop. (She had been caught driving on a suspended license before the stop. The cop threatened her with charges on the traffic violations unless she would have sex with him, and then drove her to a dark remote location, where she was afraid for her safety not to comply.) The city government refuses to confirm whether or not the police force is investigating the report. As it happens, Sergeant R. O. Conley is currently on administrative leave with pay for an indefinite period, which is to say a mandatory paid vacation, but the city government refuses to say in public whether or not Conley is the cop accused of the rape.

18. Unnamed deputy. Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. San Antonio, Texas.

Earlier this month, n unnamed Bexar County sheriff’s deputy used his uniform and gun to pull a woman aside while she was walking down the street on the south side of San Antonio. He claimed (falsely) that she had an outstanding warrant for her arrest, and ordered her to get into his patrol car. Then he drove back to her house and then he grabbed her by the neck and forced her to have sex with him. As of the most recent news reports I could find (from about a week ago), the survivor had bruises around her neck, had been hospitalized for her injuries, and was being treated in a hospital psych ward for post-traumatic stress. The deputy, who was caught naked on the survivor’s couch by the San Antonio city government’s police, claims that the sexual relationship was consensual. So far, the San Antonio city government has filed no charges against the rapist deputy, although his own bosses at the Bexar County government’s Sheriff’s Office have forced him to take a vacation from his job while he is under investigation.

19. Deputy Donald A. Harder III. Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, Edinburg, New York.

Last week, Deputy Donald A. Harder III, a cop working for the Saratoga County government’s Sheriff’s office, was released on $25,000 bond after being arrested for forcing sex on a 27-year-old woman in his patrol car while on duty on a patrol car, armed, and in full police uniform. According to the Sheriff’s office, his victim believed she had to comply [with his demands for sex] because she was in the vehicle and he was in uniform.. Before raping women on the Saratoga County government’s police force, Deputy Donald Harder was a Marine working for the United States in its invasion and occupation of Iraq.

20. Officer Cleveland Reynolds. Birmingham Police Department, Birmingham, Alabama.

Last month in Alabama, Cleveland Reynolds, a cop working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. patrol shift for the Birmingham city government’s police force, was arrested for repeatedly raping a 23 year old woman while he was out on duty. Pending the outcome of the trial, Reynolds is being given a paid vacation at taxpayer expense.

21. Officer Perry Young. Birmingham Police Department, Birmingham, Alabama.

Also last month in Alabama, Officer Perry Young, a patrol cop who formerly worked for the Birmingham city government’s police force, finally went to jail for forcing a 19-year-old woman to have sex with him while he was on duty, armed, and in uniform, after he used his legal powers to force her into his custody and took her to a remote location to force sex on her.

22. Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss. Broward Sheriff’s Office, Oakland Park, Florida.

In addition to wife-beater Deputy Brian Gillespie, the town of Oakland Park, Florida is also patrolled by serial-rapist Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss, who repeatedly used his uniform and his legal privileges as a government police officer to target Latino men on routine traffic stops or bike stops, roust them out of their cars or off their bikes, force them to show identification, and then, if he found that they were undocumented immigrants — therefore legally vulnerable easy targets — threw them down against his patrol car, forced them to submit to frisking, grabbed their penises during the search, propositioned them in Spanish, and then forced them to have sex with him in his patrol car under the threat of being arrested or reported to ICE for imprisonment and deportation. He repeatedly demanded phone numbers after raping the men in his custody, which he would later use to stalk his victims and try to arrange future encounters. Bleiweiss is known to have assaulted at least eight different undocumented Mexican and Salvadorean immigrants ranging in age from 17 to 30 years old. The Internal Investigation into Bleiweiss’s targeting of legally vulnerable men for serial rape began in early April when the boss of one of the victims approached police with a report — but Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss was allowed to continue patrolling his regular turf for three more months while under investigation, during which time (beginning April 23) he repeatedly assaulted and later stalked at least one more undocumented Mexican immigrant who he had hunted down while out on patrol. Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss was finally moved to a desk job and then later suspended without pay in July. His boss, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti, says they were giving an accused serial rapist on active patrol duty the benefit of the doubt until they completed their investigation. The case is likely to be difficult for government lawyers to prosecute because Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss deliberately targeted undocumented Latino immigrants for his serial rapes; his lawyer has already used their undocumented status to smear the victims in court, and given that all of the victims face a standing threat of being arrested, imprisoned, and deported by the United States government’s federal immigration cops if they come into contact with the government criminal justice system, [many of the victims have been extremely reluctant to come forward to the government police or to testify in a government court]((http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sfl-bso-deputy-arrested-sex-abuse,0,1484852.story).

23. Officer Billy Ray White. Louisville Metro Police Department, Louisville Kentucky.

In 2006, serial rapist Officer Billy Ray White, of the Louisville Metro Police Department, was found guilty of raping a woman at gunpoint in front of her 9 month old daughter of threatening to kill her if she reported it, and of using the threat of jail to coerce sex from another woman that he had arrested. The story is in the news again because an appeals court judge recently threw out Billy Ray White’s conviction and ordered a new trial, on the grounds (1) that the coerced sexual relationship with a woman he had arrested, conducted under the threat of imprisonment, was in some sense of the word consensual (?) and so different enough from the forcible rape that the joinder of the cases as impermissibly prejudicial, and (2) that the trial judge should not have allowed testimony from several women about Officer Billy Ray White’s repeated and insistent use of his badge and uniform to stalk and try coerce sex from them after an arrest. According to Honorable government judge Thomas B. Wine, evidence that the Officer Billy Ray White, a heavily-armed, legally-privileged enforcer for the state, while acting in uniform and under color of authority over women under his legal power, was constantly on the prowl to use his uniform in furtherance of his lust, has little probative value in determining whether or not the man had a propensity to force sex on unwilling women. As a result of the reversal of the conviction, the new trial judge, rather than scheduling a trial date, told the government prosecutor to cut a plea bargain with White; they eventually agreed that this serial-rapist would cop a plea, get sentenced to time served, and get back out on the street.

24. Officer Julian Steele, Cincinnati, Ohio.

In Ohio, Cincinnati city government cop Julian Steele falsely arrested and imprisoned a teenage boy while investigating a robbery. Then he used this bogus imprisonment to force the boy’s mother to have sex with him in order to get her boy released from jail. Remarkably, the county government is actually calling this exactly what it is by charging Steele with 10 felony counts including abduction, extortion, sexual battery and rape.

25. Officer Jesus Sanchez and the Lorain Police Department. Lorain, Ohio.

A woman named Sarah Long recently came forward with a lawsuit against the city government governing Lorain, Ohio after the city government and its hired police department repeatedly ignored complaints that Officer Jesus Sanchez, a 28-year veteran cop working for their police force, repeatedly forced kisses on her, groped her, stalked her, made phone calls every day threatening her safety, and used the power of his badge and his legal privileges as a police officer to force her to pull over her car and deal with him 15 to 20 times. When Long complained about this pattern of harassment and the use of legal power to facilitate sexual violence, nothing happened; when she finally forced the issue by talking to the federal government’s Department of Justice and filing a civil lawsuit, Sanchez was charged with menacing by stalking. After he was convicted, the penalty for singling out a woman for unwanted sexual contact, imprisoning her in her own home, and using police powers to make her constantly afraid for her safety was 60 days in jail. During his trial, Sanchez’s defense lawyer said that he had been disciplined … by Lorain police years ago for his stalking and sexual coercion — purely administrative discipline which, of course, resulted in no legal consequences whatosever for Sanchez for six years, until the lawsuit forced the issue. Sanchez was allowed to retire from the police force after his trial in spite of his conviction. The story is in the news again because Sanchez, and fellow retired cop Dennis Davis, recently filed statements in Long’s lawsuit stating that pervasive harassment, sexual abuse and rape against women had been well-known and tolerated by the boss cops for years. Sanchez himself stated in his affadavit that I have observed what I believe is a pervasive pattern of sexual misconduct by Lorain police officers committed while they are on duty. The Department persistently ignored these reports. I believed that nothing would happen to me as a result of my sexual advances …. The primary reason I made sexual advances …. while on duty was my knowledge of the City’s policy of tolerating such conduct and deliberate indifference toward such conduct by on-duty police officers. Retired cop Dennis Davis stated in his affadavit that other cops working for the Lorain city government’s police force repeatedly forced nonconsensual sexual misconduct on women while on duty and that It appeared to me that Lorain police officers engaged in this misconduct without receiving meaningful discipline to the best of my knowledge. Boss cop Cel Rivera admitted that he had handled 30 complaints relating to non-consensual sexual contact involving a police officer and a third-party since he took the job in 1994. Court documents list numerous other incidents of alleged misconduct by other officers, including stalking, forced sexual encounters, armed threats and other behavior he contends shows a pattern of ignoring misconduct by Lorain police over the years.

26. Officer Timothy Gerek, Jr. Lorain Police Department, Lorain, Ohio.

One of those cops working for the city government in Lorain was Timothy Gerek, Jr., who was indicted in 2002 for beating and then raping his estranged wife in December 2001. Gerek threatened to murder their children if his wife left him or if she called police. When she told government prosecutors that she was too afraid to testify against Officer Timothy Gerek Jr. in court — while he was violating the protection order that required him to stay away from her and her children — the prosecutors decided to offer Gerek a plea-bargain that dropped the rape charge and reduced the domestic violence charge to misdemeanor assault. When Gerek accepted the bargain and plead guilty, this rapist and wife-beater was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine to the county government. Some years later, Gerek tried to pull strings to try to get prior criminal charges expunged from his record, including getting the record of his misdemeanor assault charge from the beating and rape in 2002 sealed. If he had succeeded in getting the record sealed, it would have eliminated the public record of his agreement never to work in law enforcement again.

27. Officer Stanley Marrero. Lorain Police Department. Lorraine, Ohio.

Another cop working for the Lorain city government’s police force, who was frequenty mentioned in those complaints was Officer Stanley Marrero, was accused of raping a woman while responding to a call at her home in 1993. Then he was accused of using a routine traffic stop in 1995 to hit on the woman he was detaining, ask her personal questions and get her phone number, which he later called at 4:00 in the morning. The Incident was Internally Investigated and Marrero was exonerated. In 2003, another woman filed a complaint that Officer Stanley Marrero had followed her while on duty and in uniform and asked her personal questions. The Incident was Internally Investigated and he was ordered to leave her alone, with no further consequences. In 2000, when Officer Stanley Marrero was sent out to a woman’s house on a domestic violence call in 2000, allegedly to help keep her safe from an abusive husband, he took the opportunity to use his legal powers to order her husband to leave, then, once he had her alone, forced the traumatized domestic violence victim to have sex with him. When the woman filed a complaint with the police department, they Internally Investigated, pressed no charges against Officer Stanley Marrero, and gave him a 3 day suspension. In 2006, Officer Stanley Marrero was finally arrested and sentenced to 60 days in the county jail for public indecency, dereliction of duty, and intimidation of a witness after forcing sex on two different women while on duty and after forced his way into an acquaintance’s neighbor’s house under cover of an investigation, exposed himself to her and demanded oral sex from her, and then, after she refused and unleashed her dog to defend herself, threatened her with retaliation and arrest if she told anyone what happened. Officer Stanley Marrero is only now, finally, being investigated for the rape in 1993. When he was finally convicted in 2006, after years of acting with impunity as a stalker and serial rapist under color of legal authority, the judge in the case, Edward Zaleski, said The evidence appears overwhelming. Mr. Marrero, police scare the hell out of me. They sure scare the hell out of most people.

28. Deputy William Hatfield. Pike County Sheriff’s Office. Pike County, Kentucky.

In Kentucky, William Bill Hatfield, a volunteer sheriff’s deputy working for the Pike County government’s sheriff’s office in return for gas money, a gun, and power, used that power to sexually assault a woman he had forced to the side of the road and detained for a routine stop.

29. Officer Dewayne Curtis Hart. Pittsburgh Police Department. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Back in 2007, Dewayne Curtis Hart, a cop working for the Pittsburgh city government’s police force, went out on a burglary call at a woman’s house; a few minutes after he left, he came back, told the burglary victim that there was a warrant for her arrest on a robbery charge, threatened to arrest her, and then used the threat to forcibly undress and fondle her, then force her to fondle him. The story is in the news again because Officer Dewayne Curtis Hart’s trial on the sexual assault charges was recently delayed until October; meanwhile, while the charges are still pending, the Pittsburgh city government’s personnel refuses to say whether or not this accused rapist cop is still on the job.

30. Trooper Carlos Torres. Washington State Patrol.

Back in June 2005, a Washington State Trooper named Carlos Torres forced a woman to pull over on the highway on suspicion of drunk driving, placed her under arrest and forced her into his patrol car to give her a blood test, then drove her to a weigh station to be picked up by her fiance. (She wanted her fiance to pick her up at the jail; Trooper Carlos Torres refused, and forced her to go with him to the weigh station.) The whole time he asked her invasive personal questions about oral and anal sex; then, while keeping her locked in the back of his patrol car at the weigh station, he demanded her to undress and forcibly fondled her through the divider in his patrol car. The story is in the news again because Trooper Carlos Torres recently made an unsuccessful attempt to get a custodial sexual misconduct charge thrown out on the grounds that his victim was not in fact being detained by him while she was locked in the backseat of his patrol car with no ability to open the doors or windows and no way to get out without his permission, after he had already forced her to get into the car against her will.

31. Deputy Police Chief Jody Beaudry, Mulberry Police Department, Mulberry Florida.

Back in 2004, a 40-year-old man Jody Beaudry, a cop working for the Mulberry, Florida city government’s police force, used his position as a police officer to threaten to revoke a 16-year-old girl’s probation, and used this threat of arrest and jail to force her to have sex with him. By the time he was arrested in 2008, he had been promoted to Deputy Police Chief. The story’s in the news because he just recently plead guilty to unlawful sexual activity with a minor, a crime which may put him in jail for up to 7 years in prison. (The crime that he actually committed, by using the threat of retaliation and his powers of arrest to commit sexual battery, is, under Florida state law, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.)

32. Patrol Deputy Michael Jared Boulware, Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, Wedgefield, South Carolina.

26-year-old Deputy Michael Jared Boulware is out on bond awaiting trial for sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl. According to the government prosecutor, who asked the judge to deny bail, the victim is extremely upset and worried he will locate her. According to his defense attorney, the fact that Boulware is a former cop is supposed to provide a reason for lowering bond. Actually, I think it’s a reason for thinking that he’s potentially more dangerous to the victim.

33. Kevin Yuhas, Streator Police Department, Streator, Illinois.

Earlier this month, Kevin Yuhas, a 42-year-old 911 dispatcher working for the Streator, Illinois city government’s police force, was arrested in Wisconsin for inviting a 14-year-old boy into his home, plying the boy with 10 to 15 shots of hard liquor, and then raping him. Yuhas admits that he invited the boy over and got him drunk, but can’t remember anything that came after.

34. Officer James Stackhouse. Nashville Metro Police Department. Nashville, Tennessee.

Earlier this month, Officer James Stackhouse, a cop working for the Nashville local government’s Metro Police Department, was forced out of his job as a result of an ongoing investigation into allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl in Clay County.

35. Donald Silcott. Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Jacksonville, Florida.

Earlier this month, veteran police officer Donald Silcott, an evidence technician working for the county government’s Sheriff’s office was arrested for sexually assaulting a teenage girl in his home. The victim was taken to the hospital after she was found crying on a doorstep holding a photo of Silcott and a note with his name, address, and the date of the incident. The girl, apparently distraught and terrified, hid in the bushes and asked the woman who found her to dial 911 so she could be taken to the hospital. According to the arrest report, they performed a rape kit and recovered DNA evidence at the hospital.

36. Officer Aaron L. Jones. Harrington Police Department, Harrington, Delaware.

Aaron L. Jones, a 40-year-old cop working for the Harrington city government’s police force, was arrested earlier this month for having sex with a minor female who was staying in his home. Jones was released on a $2,500 unsecured bond and the government police have put him on a paid vacation from his job while they investigate the charges.

37. Officer Todd Spikes. Florala, Alabama Police Department. Florala, Alabama.

After driving to Flagler Beach for what he thought was a meet-up for sex with a 13 year old girl he met on the Internet, Officer Todd Spikes, a cop working for the Florala, Alabama city government’s police force was exposed as a sexual predator on national television and arrested in December 2006. The case is in the news again because government prosecutors recently offered their former colleague Todd Spikes a plea bargain which would give him probation with no prison time. Spikes turned the offer down, because it would have required him to register as a sex offender.

38. Officer Todd Lengsfield, Newnan Police Deartment, Newnan, Georgia.

Earlier this month, Officer Todd Lengsfield, a 34-year-old cop working for the Newnan, Georgia city government’s police force, was arrested for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. His bosses were tipped off by inappropriate contact with the girl using a government-issued cell phone. A blogger at eXaminer.com claims that the story is a reason why Parents have to be careful with children and technology. Actually, it sounds to me like a reason parents and children have to be careful around cops.

39. Officer Luke Morrison, Henderson Police Department, Henderson, Nevada.

You may remember Officer Luke Morrison of Henderson, Nevada for the time when he shot and killed a distraught Albanian ice-cream truck driver after she had already been knocked to the ground with a taser. Before lighting up Deshira Selimaj for the Henderson city government’s police force, Officer Luke Morrison was a former soldier who fought in the United States government’s army’s war and occupation in Iraq. Anyway, it turns out that when Officer Luke Morrison is not busy gunning down middle-aged women with no legal consequences, he also enjoys sleeping with 15 year old girls. Commenter lv2gen on the Las Vegas Sun website wants us to know that A few bad apples don’t mean every cop is dirty.

40. Officer Nathan Amosa. Hurricane Police Department, Hurricane, Utah.

Last year, Officer Nathan Amosa, a cop working for the Hurricane, Utah city government’s police force, responded to a call from a distraught mother and went to her house, allegedly to help her find her missing child, who had wandered away. Instead, he threatened to cite her for child neglect and have the government take her child away from her unless she would have sex with him. The victim says that she felt she had to do what he demanded because of the threat against her child and because Officer Nathan Amosa was in uniform and had a gun. After raping her, Officer Nathan Amosa later went on to intimidate his victim at a local grocery store. This rape is dignified by the news media as an on-duty sex episode; the story is in the news again because the government prosecutor and government judge agreed to let Officer Nathan Amosa — who had been charged with forcible sodomy and two counts of forcible sex abuse — plead no-contest to a charge of custodial sexual relations,, for which he will spend 60 days in county jail and get three years’ probation. According to the government prosecutor, this confessed rapist will get only 60 days in jail (and, because custodial sexual relations convictions don’t require it, will not be required to register as a sex offender) because he is a cop and (therefore?) because he believes that it would have been difficult to prove the victim did not consent. During sentencing, the government prosecutor told the government judge that If this was anyone other than a police officer, we would not even be here. No doubt. Over at the Desert News website, a commenter going by Cops wants us to know that There’s a lot of great cops out there and just a few high-profile incidents like this that can give them all a bad name.

41. Officer Anthony Rollins. Anchorage Police Department, Anchorage, Alaska.

Last month in Alaska, Officer Anthony Rollins, a 13 year veteran of the Anchorage city government’s police force was arrested on 10 charges of sexual assault for raping at least 6 women that he encountered while on patrol and lured into his police car, from March 2006 to April 2009. This serial rapist, who repeatedly used the power of his uniform and his legal privileges to force sex on unwilling women (including at least one rape committed at a police substation) was finally arrested after a local anti-rape group approached the police department in April, and during the investigation five more women came forward to report sexual assaults. The investigation is ongoing and more survivors may yet come forward. Meanwhile, although unwilling Anchorage taxpayers were forced to pay Anthony Rollins over $142,892 last year for his unrequested services as a patrol officer, and were forced to pay him $78,668 this year prior to his arrest, and have been forced to pay him and his wife (who also works for the city government’s police department) over $1,100,000 over the last five years, this millionaire government cop has been declared indigent by the government judge handling his trial, so that innocent Alaska taxpayers, including his six victims will be forced to pay for a government-appointed defense lawyer for his trial. Rollins’s former boss, Anchorage boss cop Rob Heun, issued an angry statement to the press in which he called Rollins’s career as a serial rapist aberrant and detestable. Well, I certainly agree with him about the latter.

42. Officer Kenneth Moreno and Officer Franklin Mata. New York Police Department. New York, New York.

Last December in New York, a pair of cops working for the city government’s police force responded to a 911 call from a cab driver about a woman he had driven home who had gotten sick from being extremely drunk. They showed up around 1:00am, allegedly to help her get home safely; instead they decided to make up a cover about their whereabouts, go back to the apartment, and rape her while she was half-conscious, violently sick, and physically helpless. (Apartment security cameras show them returning to the apartment; Officer Kenneth Moreno was recorded on the phone admitting to the victim that he had sex with her.) NYPD boss cop Ray Kelly — who knew about the case for months before any charges were filed or any allegations made public, and who didn’t even suspend the cops accused until the charges hit the newsmedia — claims that The allegations are so egregious here that its imperative that I speak out. This is a shocking aberration in stark contrast to the good work that the members of the New York City Police Department do every day.

Yeah, a huge fucking aberration. Just like all the others.

Back in Anchorage, when a reporter asked him how serial-rapist Anthony Rollins could get away with attacking at least six women while he was out on patrol over a period of three years before the police began an investigation, boss cop Rob Heun responded that there was nothing other police could have done about Rollins because No policy or procedure is going to preclude anybody who wants to break it to do just that … This is a matter of behavior — just like no law will preclude anyone from breaking the law. Of course it is true that any written law or policy can be broken, but the problem here is not just the laws that are being broken; it’s the laws that are being followed, government laws which create an institutional environment of entitled privilege, and which give any male cop who happens to be a sexual predator an arsenal of legally-sanctioned weapons and immense unaccountable power over any woman or man who he wants to place under his power while out on patrol. As I said in December 2007 about a case involving several male patrol cops in San Antonio:

What as at stake here has a lot to do with the individual crimes of three cops, and it’s good to know that the police department is taking that very seriously. But while excoriating these three cops for their personal wickedness, this kind of approach also marginalizes and dismisses any attempt at a serious discussion of the institutional context that made these crimes possible — the fact that each of these three men worked out of the same office on the same shift, the way that policing is organized, the internal culture of their own office and of the police department as a whole, and the way that the so-called criminal justice system gives cops immense power over, and minimal accountability towards, the people that they are professedly trying to protect. It strains belief to claim that when a rape gang is being run out of one shift at a single police station, there’s not something deeply and systematically wrong with that station. If it weren’t for the routine power of well-armed cops in uniform, it would have been much harder for Victor Gonzales, Anthony Munoz, or Raymond Ramos to force their victims into their custody or to credibly threaten them in order to extort sex. … And if it weren’t for the way in which they can all too often rely on buddies in the precinct or elsewhere in the force to back them up, no matter how egregiously violent they may be, it would have been much harder for any of them to believe that they were entitled to, or could get away with, sexually torturing women while on patrol, while in full uniform, using their coercive power as cops.

A serious effort to respond to these crimes doesn’t just require individual blame or personal accountability …. It also requires a demand for fundamental institutional and legal reform. If police serve a valuable social function, then they can serve it without paramilitary forms of organization, without special legal privileges to order peaceful people around and force innocent people into custody, and without government entitlements to use all kinds of violence without any accountability to their victims. What we have now is not civil policing, but rather a bunch of heavily armed, violently macho, institutionally privileged gangsters in blue.

—GT 2007-12-21: Rapists on patrol

See also:

• GT 2009-07-31: The Police Beat (on rapist-on-patrol Officer Feliciano Sanchez)
• GT 2009-06-11: The Police Beat (on rapist-on-patrol Officer Thomas Tolstoy)
• GT 2009-05-14: Rapists on Patrol (#3). Officer Gary Pignato. Greece, New York.
• GT 2008-03-10: Rapists on Patrol (#2). Officer David Alex Park, Irvine, California.
• GT 2007-12-21: Rapists on patrol. Officers Victor Hugo Gonzalez, Michael Anthony Munoz and Raymond Ramos, San Antonio, Texas.
• GT 2009-04-19: Men in Uniform (#3). Los Angeles, California.
• GT 2007-12-02: Men in Uniform
• GT 2008-02-26: Cops are here to protect you. (#2)

If a Black girl is very lucky she is born into a family that will cherish her.  She will be told repeatedly that she is beautiful, even that she is a princess.  Those first years are very important in building a solid self-esteem.  They will be needed to help deal with the stressful years ahead, when she will be told repeatedly that she is different, run of the mill, loud, rude, abrasive and even ugly. In the years ahead, she will meet Whiteness head on and the specter of Pecola Breedlove will visit her, in her quiet moments.

If she happens to be dark skinned, the Blackest of Black, those around her might ridicule her, having internalized the blue-eyed standard of beauty.  She will note how those with the lighter skin get more attention, are called beautiful, and are held up as the epitome of Black female beauty. She will watch as they toss their long, straight hair over their shoulders and wonder how her short nappy locks seem so unloved, no matter how painstakingly styled.

She will jump rope, play hopscotch, and even tag, but she dare not disagree with her playmates because she has already learned that her color will make her the aggressor, no matter her action.   Don’t scream like the other little girls and never raise your voice in anger. When she is alone and looks into a mirror, she will wonder what it is about her that makes her so different.  She does everything that the other little girls do in an effort to fit in but somehow this barrier, one that is not of her own making, refuses to give way.

In an effort to bridge the gap, she will explain her hair care rituals on command.  She will speak of washing it once a week and then having it oiled and styled, only to be called dirty because the White girls wash their hair daily.  They will turn their noses at the mere mention of hair oil, yet to her it is one of the most tender moments of the week.  It is the time when she has 100% of her mother’s attention.  It is the time when they may discuss everything and anything.  How can this ritual be bad, when it often feels so comforting?

She will struggle to find something about herself to love.  Her nose is far too broad and not like the other girls. Her lips are too full and she bites them desperately, wishing that they would deflate.  In the quiet moments she will remember her parents telling her that she is beautiful and that she is smart, but the Breedlove curse hangs heavy and hard.

She will point out Black superstars to her friends, believing that she will find validation in their fame.  “Hey guys”, she’ll announce, “have you heard that new song by Tracy Chapman, ‘Fast Car’ — isn’t she  just great?”  “The song is okay,” they will answer, “but Tracy is kind of ugly.”  Dejected, she will retreat into a corner, thinking once again about the blue-eyed promise.

Her teenage years approach and boys and men begin to display desire for her.  She is unprepared for their advances.  At first she loves her burgeoning womanly form.  Her body is curvaceous and her breasts full.  Finally, she thinks, people think I am beautiful… until she learns that it is not that men find her beautiful, but that they have come to claim her.  A Black woman’s body does not belong to her.  It is assumed to be for the sexual satisfaction of men and they could care little about her thoughts and desires.  They only want what she has between her legs.

Wherever she goes, Pecola is her constant shadow.  Will she learn to love her Blackness despite the fact that world around her has told her that she has no value? Will she succumb, like Pecola, to feelings of insanity and find herself wishing desperately for blue eyes in the false belief that they will make the world think that she is beautiful and therefore worthy? If she had blue eyes, would  people see her for who she really is?   Her journey is not unique and yet in the quiet moments when Pecola whispers, playing the strong Black woman seems too much of a burden.  The gentle sleep calls and night fades to black.  Who will arise in the morning is anyone’s guess.

Editors Note:  Pecola Breedlove is a reference to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.  If you have not read it, get thee to a library quickly.

Cross Posted from Womanist Musings

Last week, Renee (of Womanist Musings) put up a guest post at Feministe that has elicited a huge response: Thomas Jefferson, the Face of a Rapist. Below an image of our third president, she writes:

Americans look at Thomas Jefferson and see the one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, a statesman, a former president and one of the founding fathers,’ however; when I look at him, I see the face of a rapist.

Renee makes the compelling case that Jefferson’s well-documented sexual relationship with Sally Hemings, a black slave who was perhaps fifteen when their “affair” began , constituted rape because of Hemings’ age and her complete inability to provide meaningful consent. Consent, Renee argues, can only be given when the right to say “no” exists equally alongside the right to say “yes”. That makes good sense, but it also makes it difficult to argue that any woman — slave or free, white or black — in eighteenth-century America could consent. A husband’s right of access to his wife’s body was as inviolate as a slaveowner’s right to the labor of his slaves. That doesn’t mean that wealthy white women suffered to the same degree that black slave women did, of course, but it does render our modern notion of enthusiastic consent radically anachronistic. And reminding ourselves of this historical truth gives us all the more reason to celebrate the achievements of the feminist movement, which has fought for more than a century and a half to give women of all races sovereignty over their bodies and the right to say “no” as well as “yes.”

As a feminist historian, however, I want to deal with another aspect of Renee’s post. Renee rejects the defense, offered regularly during discussions of the transgressions of the late and great, that they were men (or women) “of their time” and that we “shouldn’t judge” past behavior by modern standards. There’s a lot to be said for that forgiving attitude towards the past. After all, who among us wouldn’t be enraged by the sexism of our great-grandparents? Forget Jefferson; think of one’s own elderly relatives. Few among us don’t have older folks in the family who hold abhorrent views on a variety of topics, and in many instances, those relatives have matched their actions to their views. To judge everyone by a contemporary standard of what is ethical would make inter-generational community far more difficult.

On the other hand, refusing to condemn the injustices of the past is to minimise, or at least erase, the suffering of very real victims. We can’t know Sally Hemings’ mind — but we make a huge mistake when we adopt the dominant narrative of her life, assuming that in the absence of obvious evidence of abuse that she was Jefferson’s happily consenting paramour. When the story is told, her lack of agency ought to be a focus, and it is not beyond the bounds of thoughtful history to ask what light this grossly disparate relationship sheds on our understanding of the third president. Feminist narrative ought to center women’s lives, and feminist historians rightly insist that Jefferson’s relationships with women form part of the story of his remarkable life. That doesn’t mean devaluing his achievements; it doesn’t mean feminists should picket the Jefferson Memorial or stage protests at Monticello. But it does mean asking hard questions about race and sex and power, it does mean exposing the notion of a “consensual affair” between a wealthy white man and his adolescent female slave as problematic if not risible.

Above all, we ought to chart a course between hagiography and demonization. It’s too simple-minded — albeit immensely tempting — to turn the figures of the past into saints or devils. Jefferson was a great man — and yes, he was a rapist. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the pivotal figure in the civil rights movement and a man who inspired hundreds of millions; he was also a chronic womanizer. Margaret Sanger fought her entire life so that women could have that precious right to birth control, but she repeatedly flirted with racist eugenics. Depending on one’s politics, the temptation is to center one’s focus solely on a partial aspect of a historical figure. When we do this, we make the critical mistake of seeing history as a story of “either/or” rather than “both/and.”

Like everyone reading this post, I have inflicted hurt. The story of my life, like the story of your life, surely contains within it episodes of great kindnesses and incidents of genuine wickedness. (For many of us, the greatest wickednesses we do are rooted in obtuse indifference rather than malice.) A skillful historian could, using only the facts, make virtually any one of us paragons of virtue — or exemplars of cruelty. When it comes to the dead, we cannot allow a respect for their accomplishments to blind us to their shortcomings; by the same token, we cannot allow the magnitude of those shortcomings to erase the legacy of the good that they did. As Thomas Merton’s old axion puts it, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” There is straight and crooked in each of us, and good history tells the story of both.

by Pam Spaulding

Last night I attended my City Council meeting here in Durham, NC because there was going to be a vote on a resolution supporting civil marriage equality for same-sex couples. It passed unanimously. The Bull City joins Chapel Hill and Carrboro in backing full marriage rights.

When I entered the council chambers to sign up to speak (around 6:20, with the meeting to begin at 7PM), it was already filling up. I gave a hug to Mayor Bell, who has known me since I was a little p-a-m. He apparently keeps up with the “trouble” I get into on the internets, and another council member, Mike Woodard, an ally who marches with us in the NC Pride parade.

After several proclamations and bits of business it came to the main agenda items of the night. It was clear this was a big meeting for two reasons—the resolution and a matter concerning the city's recycling vendor contract. I'm sorry to say that I was not up to date on the latter issue, but after an excruciating hour of debate that shed little light (at least to me) on what the outcome was, it was time for the resolution.

The council decided to move on the issue, meaning no debate was needed. All but one of those who signed up to speak was in favor of the equality resolution. One woman in my row (well-known local homophobe and failed political candidate Victoria Peterson) jumped to her feet to object (about 4:30 in) "Excuse me, I'd like to speak." Mayor Bell firmly, but politely told her "I'm running the meeting" and said they were ready to move the item and vote. And they did—and there was a standing ovation (4:48).

Notice the racial divide—who was standing and who remained seated. It's too bad that I was unable to get up to speak. That's for another day...I'll take this opportunity to announce that I've been asked to be the keynote speaker at NC Pride this year. The parade, which weaves in OWD next to Duke's East Campus, ends with the keynote and other guests. It will be a good opportunity to celebrate the victories—and address this sad divide in understanding.

There was no divide among the wingers who dropped into the comments section of the news coverage of the vote. Some real live knuckledragging is below the fold.

It was only a matter of time before the bigots blew their stacks in the local comments of a WRAL article covering the Durham City Council's approval of a resolution affirming marriage equality for same-sex couples. 

It still amazes me that a city would go against the state law and agitate the situation. One more reason we really need a NC Constitutional Amendment BANNING any marriage that is not between one man and one woman! Better talk to your legislators before these fringe kooks do! Marriage is ONLY between one man and one woman - even California agrees on this! We give Gays equal rights but this is a legal definition! There cannot be “Gay Marriage” as it does not meet the legal requirements! Gays have their legal unions, but they are NOT marriages.

I again say - what rights are not afforded to gays? No one has yet come up with one.

Then you and I agree. They aren’t bothering me, I don’t bother them. That’s the most we can hope for.

This is simply a resolution, that means a lot to that audience. The G.A.’s apologetic resolution for slavery, meant a lot to me, as a black man.

Although I’m not a fan of comparing their struggle to that of blacks, Jews, and Native Americans; they do have the civil right to live as they please. The conservative side of me supports them having that freedom as long as they aren’t doing anything illegally.

Most marriages end in divorce (60%) and many couples cheat on each other (35% male, 36% female). Why would anyone want to suport such an institution?

You can do whatever you want to in the privacy of your own home. It is when it is being shoved down my throat that I take offense to it. Keep your immoral ways to yourself and we want have a need to be on hear blogging. For the record I am a Christian and I believe in the Bible and that is the only reason that I need to know that Homosexuality and Same Sex Marriage is wrong.

Leviticus 18:22:

22 “Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin.

Bottomline..... Marriage is between one man and one woman!

my only statement is the lod said go forth and multiply to populate the world. How can 2 women or 2 men without meidcal help do so

Straight people don’t have to choose, their desires come “naturally”.

It’s fine to have a desire for the same sex, but it becomes a “crime against nature” when contact is made-- and that’s okay with me. Don’t turn our city into another Sodom. We know how that turned out.

I just don’t get it.. Is this an anything goes society now? I mean, at what point is something right and wrong? It looks like anything that a group of people are involved in can eventually become ‘right’ and socially acceptable. It is sad that our society has lost its backbone on what is morally correct. It is still a free country. If you are gay, noone is going to arrest you, but it should not be included in the same religious institution as the marriage between a man and woman. Again, where do we draw the line? We have sadly falen into a society where whatever makes us feel good is okay. What a slippery slope :(

I would like to be able to marry my dog. He is loyal, devoted, and a long-term friend. We would of course have a platonic relationship, just like many married couples already do, but it would be nice to get some tax breaks. Also I could get him covered on my insurance policy to reduce those pesky veterinarian bills. I may even be able to buy him some nicer treats using food stamps.

Now, if only gay groups would stop shoving their beliefs on everybody when the camera light turns on.

God gave man a woman, as in Adam and Eve, and He designated for man a woman to be bonded by marriage. That is a fact. For those of you approving otherwise, you have taken a Biblical fact - where the birth of marriage originated - and have redefined that fact into something different that will be self-serving.

easilyamused123: “Regardless of what you think or what your book says, you can’t stop equality. It happened for women, it happened for African-Americans, and it will happen for homosexuals.”

HUGE difference, Skippy! Women and blacks were born as women and blacks. They didn’t choose that. Gays and Lesbians chose their sexual preference just as they choose whether to be hateful or nice, or whether they think purple is their favorite color. Women and blacks are equal because they WERE born as they are. NO ONE argues that. But MANY don’t believe Gays were born as they are. The fact that its even arguable, tells you there’s a HUGE difference between women/blacks and Homosexuals.

FYI, here is the full text of the resolution:

WHEREAS, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized civil marriage as one of the basic civil rights fundamental to our very existence and survival and one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness; and

WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Durham has adopted and reaffirmed a policy of promoting equal rights and opportunities for employees of Durham City Government without regard to race, religion, age, sex, handicap, national origin, color, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation or belief; and

WHEREAS, in 2002, the City Council of the City of Durham formally extended health care benefits to same sex domestic partners of City employees and their legal dependents due in part to the fact that same sex marriages are not legally recognized in North Carolina; and

WHEREAS, the continued refusal to legally recognize same sex marriages denies individuals involved in same sex relationships the important legal benefits, rights and responsibilities of civil marriage that are available to heterosexual couples; and

WHEREAS, the continued refusal to deny same sex partners the ability to enjoy the benefits, rights and responsibilities of a legally recognized civil marriage union is tantamount to the denial of these benefits, rights and responsibilities on the basis of sexual orientation; and

WHEREAS, the denial of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage on the basis of sexual orientation is inconsistent with the City Council’s commitment to equal rights and opportunities for its employees without regard to sexual orientation.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DURHAM:

Section 1.  The City Council of the City of Durham endorses and supports the rights of same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities and commitments of civil marriage.

Section 2.  This resolution shall be effective on and after its passage.