Former Cleveland Police Department Sgt. Chad Langdon, who was the lead investigator on the case, also testified that an 11-year-old - due to her emotional immaturity - legally cannot give consent for a sexual encounter. Taylor questioned why the underage girl had not been charged with anything for choosing to violate that rule, indicating that she was "the reason" that the encounters happened.The news media moves from one story to the next with a great deal of speed. There are examples of forced memes--such as Fox News' fixation on the Benghazi non-story--that circulate and hang around for weeks or months (what is an eternity in the era of 24 hour news coverage). But, most stories do no linger for more than a few days.
"Like the spider and the fly. Wasn't she saying, 'Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?' " Taylor asked.
"I wouldn't call her a spider," Langdon replied. "I'd say she was just an 11-year-old girl."
"I hope nothing like this ever happens to your two teenage sons," Taylor snapped back.
Warren asked Langdon what he would do if his own sons had been involved in such a case. "I would not whitewash it or sweep it under the rug," the detective said.
Cruse is the second of 20 male defendants to be tried for allegedly sexually assaulting the girl over the course of four months in 2010 in Cleveland.
The public watches the car accident news pileup in an act of forced spectatorship; they tire of it; the 24 hours news cycle force then feeds the public another issue which they eagerly consume. In all, there is no connection between the importance of a news item and the amount of time the mass media spends on it. Ephemeral nonsense can linger about for days or weeks, while substantial issues which impact our collective life chances disappear almost immediately.
Two years ago an eleven year old girl was gang raped in Texas by a pack of 20 man beasts over the course of several months. These cretins then recorded this evil and shared it with like-minded highwaymen in their local high school. At the time, the story was a blip on the national radar. It was discussed in the alternative press and online. However, the mainstream news media paid little attention to this heinous crime.
The trial has finally begun in earnest. One would think that such a moment would be the subject of a prime time news special and that a media circus would ensue. Alternatively, that coverage of the event would be replayed over and over again on the 24 hours news channels, their executives and on-air personalities long trained in the habit of combusting in orgiastic delight whenever a young white woman goes missing or a white child is put at risk.
Ratings are king; the genre of news reporting known as "missing white woman syndrome" is money in the bank for advertisers and TV networks.
In the news business there is a truism and slogan that guides programming: "if it bleeds it leads." Apparently, this is true unless the story is about a young brown child who has been subject to wanton violence.
America is a rape culture. Women are objectified and sexualized at an early age in this society. The male gaze is real, and used by the market and its dream merchants to drive the engine of a consumer democracy. Because the United States, and the West, more broadly, are societies structured in various inequalities of gender, race, and class, rape culture is deeply, if not inseparably, entangled with the color line. Here, to be female is also to inhabit a particular type of racialized and gendered body.
This tragic case of a young girl who was gang raped by twenty black men also brings to mind another stereotype, one that has a great deal of purchase and power in the American political and cultural subconscious. These thugs are the living embodiment of the black beast rapist, the myth who justified the strange human fruit of the lynching tree, the thousands of black humanity killed by murderous white mobs, for more than 100 years in the South and elsewhere.
But here is the corrective. These accused rapists are real; they are not fictional black bogeyman. They are not black beast rapists, where in its original invention, "blackness" was conflated naturally with "beast" and "rapist" in the White Racial Imagination. In their evil, the child rapists in Texas are simply monstrous beasts, cut throat highwaymen brigands. Such a distinction is critically important.
Regina, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt with a gold cross around her neck, smiled nervously and softly answered questions about several sexual encounters that occurred over a five-month period in 2010. But her demeanor changed, a tear sliding down one cheek, when the prosecutor showed a graphic video of her.Thus I must ask the following. Where is the moral panic for this young child? Where are the pundit class feminists? Where are the protesters? And why is the national news media not fixated on this story?
That was one of the cellphone videos of the alleged assaults that went viral around the Cleveland School District that triggered the investigation. In it, a young man appears to be having anal sex with her.
She identified McGowen as the voice laughing in the background, shouting "beat that ho!"
Regina, now 13, often had difficulty remembering names and how all the assaults occurred, but she did recall having oral sex with McGowen and identified him as the one in another video sexually assaulting her with a beer bottle.
I am possessed by a painful and worrisome truth. If this young girl were white, and her attackers were also of the same race, this would be an epic news happening that would generate "a national conversation" about violence against young girls. If this child was white, and her twenty attackers were African-American or Hispanic, there would be a national panic.
But there is silence when twenty young black men rape an 11 year old Hispanic girl and the defense attorney tries to suggest that she is a seductress.
Irony of ironies. America is so grotesquely post-racial, is it not?
The collective silence about the gang rape of an 11 year old girl is not a case where sexism and misogyny trumps racism. A simple formulation would be erroneous. In this tragic example, racism and sexism are enabling each other as the lives of young black and brown girls would appear to be pretty damn cheap.
17 comments:
First and foremost, I pray that this little girl will make a full recovery from this tragic ordeal. Conversely, each and every one of these Black boys and men complicit here should not only receive the maximum punishment for willingly participating in this gruesome crime, but they should serve their time UNDER the prison.
This empire may be quite diverse, however, things of this nature will continue to happen as long as Black and Brown people grovelingly submit to the suffocating and draconian hegemony of White supremacy. Obviously, in the eyes of Whites folks, Black and Brown female bodies have been cheapened and reduced to a state of sub-zero value.
Conversely, and as I have mentioned before, the media is THE PROBLEM! How they decide what to report and what not to report is essential to the maintenance and upholding of White supremacy. The tone of how White reporters spin crime, if at all report it; how the mostly White media decides for us all what we should be enraged about.
And to highlight my point even further, approximately one month ago in my locale, an 8 year-old, grade school Asian student reported to her White Principal that her teacher placed some “gooey” stuff in her mouth after being blindfolded. The reporting on this incident was tepid at best. On the other hand, if this was a Black teacher, he would’ve been immediately arrested and immediately convicted in the press; skipped the jailing process and sent on a fast track to prison. http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_21899766/trial-begins-san-jose-principal-accused-failing-report
Teachers and Principals within the State of California are mandated by law to report things of this nature to local authorities. The White Principal failed to do so and received merely a smack on the wrist for not doing her job. Only the idiot Teacher was jailed and pending trial.
In sum, the media has essentially been weaponized in the name of furthering White supremacy. Too bad we as Black and Brown folks continue to allow them to write the script and people of color continually to fall prey right into their traps by passively playing our demonic acting parts.
"Where is the Outrage?" Can't believe you even ask that question.
"there is silence when twenty young black men rape an 11 year old Hispanic girl"
Where's the outrage? The same place it is when one black man kills hundreds of children. Where's YOUR outrage over the black beast you've enabled and idolized?
Where's the outrage indeed? For the black man assaulting millions of the poor and elderly?
Where the fuck is the outrage?
@ Nomad
So I guess the % of votes needed for next election didn't happen? Don't lower the importantance of this story for your own agenda. "assaulting millions of poor and elderly" GTFO. Think if this was your family. Also where were her parents?
things of this nature will continue to happen as long as Black and Brown people grovelingly submit to the suffocating and draconian hegemony of White supremacy.
rotflmbao...,
ONLY a jiggaboo could fix his mouth and screw up his little pathetic pea-brain to say something as asinine as this.
Blaming the barbarism of these savages on "white supremacy" rather than on the barbaric savages themselves is flatly and fundamentally absurd.
Bottomline solution to no education, no jobs, no morals, no prospects muhuggahs - DEATH SQUADS.
Everything else is foolish conversation....,
"Don't lower the importantance of this story for your own agenda. "assaulting millions of poor and elderly" GTFO. "
Not a chance, bro. As long as black bourgies remain silent on these atrocities I'm gon point out their selective outrage. They shoulda been protesting loudly the first time Obama offered his Grand Betrayal, I mean Bargain. Or blew the first child away in a red mist.
Cornel West said something about the problem of this society is that we are taught to be well adjusted to a non adjusted society.
@Nomad. I think there needs to be a category in the DSM-V for your Obama obsessions. When you wipe your butt with cheap toilet tissue and your finger goes through it and you get poop on your hand is that Obama's fault too?
@BS. Media coverage is racialized. What those monsters who should be castrated and then put under the jail did has nothing to do with white racism. Nothing at all. As I often say, white supremacy has damaged everyone in this society. One of the ways it has hurt some black and brown people is that they have denied themselves and others personal agency. With this denial of agency comes a denial of responsibility for their own choices, actions, and deeds.
"@Nomad. I think there needs to be a category in the DSM-V for your Obama obsessions. When you wipe your butt with cheap toilet tissue and your finger goes through it and you get poop on your hand is that Obama's fault too?"
Nope I just blame him for his genuine crimes and misdemeanors betrayals and deceptions. The target this time was not here but your selective and feckless outrage by way of contrasting the two topics. Indignant outrage on the one hand, and justifiably so; but silence on an even greater outrage. Oh, the soul numbing fruit of lesser-evilism. It rots your heart. Not to worry though, it has no apparent effects on mental capacity; as has been amply demonstrated here.
@CNU, you seem to be somewhat perturbed. It's not my fault that you lack the required comprehension skills to understand my simple post. As I stated above, those Black men and boys who were complicit in this gruesome crime should not only face the maximum penalty available, but they should also serve their time UNDER the prison. I never once stated that racism had one cintilla to do with their act. However, I did say that the media is racist in their selections as to what they see as deserving of blanket coverage depending on the skin tone of the victim. If the victim is Black or Brown, the pathological pattern is to give minimal coverage. This explains why this little Hispanic girl wasn;t given the deserving media attention that she should've received.
On the other hand, when the victim is of Aryan ilk, the media attention given is damn near overwhelming.
You attacked my character by attempting to place your own selfish spin on my post. I'm not going to attack your character in return because I'm much bigger than that as a person. It's unfortunate that I'm unable to say the same about you.
Yours truly,
Blakk Sage
Spiteful spillover from yesterday's drive-by BS.
As a simple rule of thumb, I find that once a blog-less correspondent asses-out, it's usually best to discount and demonize that one - for all intents and purposes - for all time.
Less resource intensive than sifting through their ephemeral malarky in hopes that they may have once had, or might once again sometime have something useful or sensible to say.
You couldn't sustainably attack my character because I've got a continuous 7 year log of documented interests and opinions that trivially puts the lie to anything you might emotionally fix your mouth to say.
@CNU, I highly encourage you to join a comedic circuit.
Yours truly,
Blakk Sage
@CNU, are you upset?
Yours truly,
Blakk Sage
lol@60 year old jiggaboos attempting "you mad brah?"
priceless.comedy.gold...,
Finally some attention from black men and so called progressive whites about the sex slave problem involing mostly young , poor black girls and their constant violation. End Sexual Slavery. Inquire about the missing in your "hood". Understand the link to white supremacy in this and the brutality of black on black crime. Fight the illuminatti agenda. The real Revolution and global fight for hummanity begins now.
@Anon. Damn illuminati. Where are they at? Hiding under our beds writing bad rap videos?
"Damn illuminati. Where are they at? Hiding under our beds"
You're looking in the wrong direction. Try the top of the pyramid. Alternately you can see their cryptograms etched across the sky.
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