Tasha Hill, a black woman and an army reservist was leaving a Cracker Barrel restaurant in suburban Atlanta when Troy Dale West almost smacked her seven year old daughter with a door.
She told him that she did not appreciate his action, and he responded by beating her badly, using the 'n' word and the 'b' word repeatedly as he pounded her with closed fists.
What is amazing is that there were a fairly large number of customers outside but not one bothered to intervene (though they did tell the police what they saw.)
What is even more amazing and disturbing was the tenor of the interview that Hill and her lawyer got from CNN. They were repeatedly asked whether she 'provoked' the attack.
Provoked??!
Excuse me, but how the heck could she have 'provoked' this attack? Although Hill says that all she did was tell him bluntly that she did not appreciate the way he nearly slammed the door on her daughter, it really doesn't matter what she said. Nothing she COULD have said (though witnesses said she didn't say or do anything 'provocative') could possibly justify a brutal assault that still has her nursing bruises a week after the attack. It's that simple. He has no right to physically assault her no matter what she said to him. what is disgusting is that she and her lawyer were even asked if she 'provoked' him. I guess since the victim is a black woman and the perpetrator is a white man the white men doing the interview simply assume that he must have been 'provoked.' It's an outrage that anyone even has to ask about this. I'm not sure that we shouldn't just retire the term, at least when talking about human beings (yeah, you can 'provoke' an animal to attack but humans are supposed to be more highly evolved than animals, though maybe not in Mr. West's case.)
Beyond this, there is something more that is troubling about this as well. It's that the restaurant where this happened was a Cracker Barrel. In this case the restaurant clearly bears no responsibility for Mr. West's actions although the people who failed to intervene were presumably customers on their way in or out. But Cracker Barrel does have a disturbing recent history of racism. Even into the twenty-first century they have practiced de facto segregation such as forcing black customers to sit in the smoking section (including those black customers who don't smoke.) Even Chris Rock's mother has experienced racist treatment at a Cracker Barrel, only three years ago.
So it may well be that there is an undercurrent to this attack: Troy West represents exactly the demographic that Cracker Barrel seeks to attract. Keep in mind that even the name is vaguely racist. "Crackers" (derived from 'whip-crackers,' a term that hearkens back to the worst memories of slavery) were the young southern men who during the worst of the Jim Crow days would keep blacks 'in their place.'
Showing posts with label violence against women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence against women. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Woman hit, beaten, raped. And nobody even bothered to call it in
This is a pretty disturbing story: In broad daylight on a heavily traveled highway in Massachusetts, a woman was run into from behind, beaten, knocked unconscious and sexually assaulted, and no one bothered to call it in.
A woman was viciously attacked in broad daylight Friday afternoon on a heavily traveled road, while other drivers passed by without stopping.
The woman, in her mid-40s, was knocked unconscious, brutalized and sexually assaulted after pulling over on Route 28 in Middleborough after a fender bender, police said.
The attack, which began about 4:30 p.m., lasted for more than 10 minutes. "She was definitely violently assaulted," said Middleborough police Lt. Charles Armanetti....
When police arrived, the man and his car were gone, and the woman was found unconscious. She was revived and taken to a nearby hospital.
Armanetti said they received only one 911 call from a driver who stopped to help after the man had left.
Now, I can understand why someone might not want to directly confront the attacker (though given the nature of the assault I'd like to think that most people would have anyway) but what is really apalling is that today, almost everyone has a cell phone, and in ten minutes of heavy traffic (probably scores of vehicles) no one even bothered to call it in.
You know, just this week here in Arizona, Dale Hausner, one of the 'serial shooter' suspects was convicted and sentenced to death. Among his victims was a man named Nathanial Shoffner. Shoffner was not originally slated by Hausner for death. But he was murdered after he intervened to prevent Hausner from shooting a stray dog and Hausner decided relieve his murderous lust by shooting Shoffner instead. Which shows that trying to stop a dangerous character in the act can certainly be dangerous itself. But the alternative-- to call 911-- is easy, safe and should be a no-brainer.
But at least Shoffner tried, and saved a dog-- and for that he deserves more respect than the entire traffic flow of route 28 in Middleborough, Massachusetts who couldn't be bothered to save a human being. It is a sad day when dozens of people see a violent crime and not one of them is even bothered to take out their cell phone and make a call. And because of it another very dangerous character is now on the loose.
A woman was viciously attacked in broad daylight Friday afternoon on a heavily traveled road, while other drivers passed by without stopping.
The woman, in her mid-40s, was knocked unconscious, brutalized and sexually assaulted after pulling over on Route 28 in Middleborough after a fender bender, police said.
The attack, which began about 4:30 p.m., lasted for more than 10 minutes. "She was definitely violently assaulted," said Middleborough police Lt. Charles Armanetti....
When police arrived, the man and his car were gone, and the woman was found unconscious. She was revived and taken to a nearby hospital.
Armanetti said they received only one 911 call from a driver who stopped to help after the man had left.
Now, I can understand why someone might not want to directly confront the attacker (though given the nature of the assault I'd like to think that most people would have anyway) but what is really apalling is that today, almost everyone has a cell phone, and in ten minutes of heavy traffic (probably scores of vehicles) no one even bothered to call it in.
You know, just this week here in Arizona, Dale Hausner, one of the 'serial shooter' suspects was convicted and sentenced to death. Among his victims was a man named Nathanial Shoffner. Shoffner was not originally slated by Hausner for death. But he was murdered after he intervened to prevent Hausner from shooting a stray dog and Hausner decided relieve his murderous lust by shooting Shoffner instead. Which shows that trying to stop a dangerous character in the act can certainly be dangerous itself. But the alternative-- to call 911-- is easy, safe and should be a no-brainer.
But at least Shoffner tried, and saved a dog-- and for that he deserves more respect than the entire traffic flow of route 28 in Middleborough, Massachusetts who couldn't be bothered to save a human being. It is a sad day when dozens of people see a violent crime and not one of them is even bothered to take out their cell phone and make a call. And because of it another very dangerous character is now on the loose.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Thirteen women murdered and killer still at large. Media ignores story.
My sister Miriam, who lives in New Mexico sent me the following guest post:
Time Magazine finally has a short story about it this week.
But have you heard anywhere else about the fact that 13 bodies have been found buried in the mesa west of Albuquerque, near where a new development was being started? A woman walking her dog discovered the first skeleton back in early February, and since then crews have unearthed 12 more, including a skeleton of woman carrying a fetus. All of the victims are female, and the killings appear to have happened about 5 years ago, in 2004. Only 3 of the 13 have been identified, and there is no lead on who the killer may have been.
Why isn't an undentified serial killer headline news? The American appetite for sensational news would seem to beg for this to be a top story, but the only news about this string of murders had been from local news outlets (including an insightful commentary from a local independent publication.) CNN, ABC, the AP – the national news outlets – have only had occasional second-teir mention; a ticker at the bottom of the screen mentioned it for a day or two, and then it dissapeared, despite the fact that bodies continued to be discovered for several weeks. Web sites with mention are few and far between.
I think this story is not high priority for a reason, and that reasons shows that our country is far from the enlightened, fair-minded populace that we hoped the election of Barak Obama would help reveal. The first young woman's body was identified as a “prostitute and a drug-user.” The next 2 who have been identified also had a history of prostitution. So, that's the issue – apparently if a young girl is troubled and finds herself earning money in way not sanctioned by society (although obviously serving a business need successfully enough to be the “world's oldest profession”) she is a throw-away. Her murder doesn't matter. Violence against women- even when it results in murder – wasn't reason enough to raise this to the national conciousness. Indeed, even after the Albuquerque police department received reports several years ago about a number of missing women (someone out there DID love them after all), apparently the effort needed to find and stop the killer was not a high priorty. As NM Representative Linda Lopez (D-ABQ) eloquently stated on March 12 (in a story also reported only in the independent media) “the police have characterized the dead women not as victims of crime, but as criminals themselves.” Lopez, to her great credit, brought attention to the issue at a session of the State Legistlature by bringing a “State Memorial” (SM 85) which takes the both the press and the police to task for their treatment of the crimes. Her symbolic Memoral states:
WHEREAS, the women whose remains have been identified in the west mesa mass grave site have been depicted by both the police and many members of the media not as victims of violence and crime, but rather as criminals themselves; and
WHEREAS, the labeling of these victims creates an atmosphere of ambivalence with regard to the crimes that have been perpetrated against them, while also denying their humanity and their role in our communities as daughters, mothers, sisters,
cousins, nieces and granddaughters; …
The Memorial goes on to note the significance of the issue of poverty and violence against women in New Mexico, which she notes has the third-highest domestic violence rate in the country.
Representative Lopez's Memorial is right on target, but it is unlikely to raise the horrific nature of the event beyond state borders, despite the fact the very lack of attention being paid by the national press indicates this is much more than a local issue. If 13 middle-class soccer moms were killed and buried for 5 years without notice, the revealation would overtake the press for weeks, silencing all other issues with the media frenzy. That, of course, is the other end of the spectrum, but this story does at least deserve the respect of bringing issues of violence toward women – and a potential serial killer on the loose – the attention they legitimately deserve.
I would add that my sister is right about the double standard applied to women. We've seen the media obsess for months about the disappearance or murder of a single 'good' girl (like Natalie Holloway or Lacey Peterson) but they don't care if something happens to a 'bad' girl (they get to define who is 'good' and who is 'bad,' according to their own definition of morality of course.)
The conduct of the police here bears a disturbing resemblance to another case I once blogged on, in which a rape victim was arrested and the investigation into the rape closed all because she once had a juvenile arrest warrant that was years old). The job of the police is to solve the crime. It is not to be the judge and jury, and certainly not to prioritize solving the crime according to their view of the worthiness of the victim to receive their help.
Time Magazine finally has a short story about it this week.
But have you heard anywhere else about the fact that 13 bodies have been found buried in the mesa west of Albuquerque, near where a new development was being started? A woman walking her dog discovered the first skeleton back in early February, and since then crews have unearthed 12 more, including a skeleton of woman carrying a fetus. All of the victims are female, and the killings appear to have happened about 5 years ago, in 2004. Only 3 of the 13 have been identified, and there is no lead on who the killer may have been.
Why isn't an undentified serial killer headline news? The American appetite for sensational news would seem to beg for this to be a top story, but the only news about this string of murders had been from local news outlets (including an insightful commentary from a local independent publication.) CNN, ABC, the AP – the national news outlets – have only had occasional second-teir mention; a ticker at the bottom of the screen mentioned it for a day or two, and then it dissapeared, despite the fact that bodies continued to be discovered for several weeks. Web sites with mention are few and far between.
I think this story is not high priority for a reason, and that reasons shows that our country is far from the enlightened, fair-minded populace that we hoped the election of Barak Obama would help reveal. The first young woman's body was identified as a “prostitute and a drug-user.” The next 2 who have been identified also had a history of prostitution. So, that's the issue – apparently if a young girl is troubled and finds herself earning money in way not sanctioned by society (although obviously serving a business need successfully enough to be the “world's oldest profession”) she is a throw-away. Her murder doesn't matter. Violence against women- even when it results in murder – wasn't reason enough to raise this to the national conciousness. Indeed, even after the Albuquerque police department received reports several years ago about a number of missing women (someone out there DID love them after all), apparently the effort needed to find and stop the killer was not a high priorty. As NM Representative Linda Lopez (D-ABQ) eloquently stated on March 12 (in a story also reported only in the independent media) “the police have characterized the dead women not as victims of crime, but as criminals themselves.” Lopez, to her great credit, brought attention to the issue at a session of the State Legistlature by bringing a “State Memorial” (SM 85) which takes the both the press and the police to task for their treatment of the crimes. Her symbolic Memoral states:
WHEREAS, the women whose remains have been identified in the west mesa mass grave site have been depicted by both the police and many members of the media not as victims of violence and crime, but rather as criminals themselves; and
WHEREAS, the labeling of these victims creates an atmosphere of ambivalence with regard to the crimes that have been perpetrated against them, while also denying their humanity and their role in our communities as daughters, mothers, sisters,
cousins, nieces and granddaughters; …
The Memorial goes on to note the significance of the issue of poverty and violence against women in New Mexico, which she notes has the third-highest domestic violence rate in the country.
Representative Lopez's Memorial is right on target, but it is unlikely to raise the horrific nature of the event beyond state borders, despite the fact the very lack of attention being paid by the national press indicates this is much more than a local issue. If 13 middle-class soccer moms were killed and buried for 5 years without notice, the revealation would overtake the press for weeks, silencing all other issues with the media frenzy. That, of course, is the other end of the spectrum, but this story does at least deserve the respect of bringing issues of violence toward women – and a potential serial killer on the loose – the attention they legitimately deserve.
I would add that my sister is right about the double standard applied to women. We've seen the media obsess for months about the disappearance or murder of a single 'good' girl (like Natalie Holloway or Lacey Peterson) but they don't care if something happens to a 'bad' girl (they get to define who is 'good' and who is 'bad,' according to their own definition of morality of course.)
The conduct of the police here bears a disturbing resemblance to another case I once blogged on, in which a rape victim was arrested and the investigation into the rape closed all because she once had a juvenile arrest warrant that was years old). The job of the police is to solve the crime. It is not to be the judge and jury, and certainly not to prioritize solving the crime according to their view of the worthiness of the victim to receive their help.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
McCain rape joke
One of my favorite Arizona bloggers, Tedski, did a post on the worst side of John McCain's sense of sick 'humor' in which he dug up this image of a Tucson newspaper article from 1986 in which John McCain is quoted as telling the following joke:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
But, hey this is a guy who publically called his own wife the c-word.
All I have to ask is DO WE WANT THIS KIND OF A NEANDERTHAL SEXIST AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
Incidentally, Tedski has been selected as the state blogger representing Arizona at the Democratic convention. I put in for it, but I don't mind saying that the credentials committee made an excellent choice.
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
But, hey this is a guy who publically called his own wife the c-word.
All I have to ask is DO WE WANT THIS KIND OF A NEANDERTHAL SEXIST AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
Incidentally, Tedski has been selected as the state blogger representing Arizona at the Democratic convention. I put in for it, but I don't mind saying that the credentials committee made an excellent choice.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Girl stoned to death for falling in love.
What was the crime which Du'a Khalil Aswad committed? The seventeen year old Iraqi girl did something that millions of other seventeen year old girls do. She fell in love. With a boy about her age (sixteen, to be exact). She left home for a few hours to be with him, in fact she was gone all night. Maybe she had sex with him-- we don't know whether she did or not, and it doesn't matter whether she did.
And what was her punishment? She was stoned to death (warning-- the link contains two still photos of her dying on the street, taken from a video that was shot of the murder).
A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.
As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Du’a Khalil Aswad as "an abhorrent murder" and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.
Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.
Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.
Oh. Not only did she spend a night with her boyfriend, but (horror of horrors) he belonged to a different religion.
And somehow that is supposed to justify what happened after that. A group of eight or nine men, some of whom were her relatives, went into a home where she was taking sanctuary, dragged her out onto the street and over a period of about half an hour murdered her by throwing stones at her.
It is tempting to blame the U.S. presence in Iraq, but that would be wrong. This may have happened in Iraq, but the U.S. occupation has nothing to do with it (though the failure of local authorities to do anything about it is typical of what we've seen from Iraqi police and government officials.) For one thing, this sort of thing happens all the time, all over the middle east. Women or girls who even look at a man the wrong way can face the most severe punishment, including not only death by stoning but also by stabbing, beating with clubs, fists or rifle butts, burning to death, being boiled alive and pretty much any other unspeakably brutal way you can think of that a man or a group of men could kill a woman. As religious fundamentalism has spread in Iraq (not just Islamic-- these people were members of a cult opposed to Islam), so have age old, and truly monstrous traditions for 'dealing' with anything other than a 100% subservient, docile, cowering and obedient woman.
We've also seen that post-Saddam Iraq has only followed along with the rest of the middle east in that most nations now deny women equal rights and privileges pertaining to civil matters like divorce, custody and inheritances as they give to men. In fact, some of the first laws passed by the Iraqi parliament under the new Constitution codified in law that women would be second class citizens. Girls still have the right to get an education beyond the elementary school level, but one wonders how long even that will last.
We must condemn 'honor killings' as nothing other than barbaric acts of the most hideous, cruel and foul murder. There must never be any such thing as 'honor' associated with such heinous crimes.
A start that we could do as Americans would be to press our government, when considering whether to grant asylum to refugees, to give preference to women over men from the middle east, specifically because they have reason to fear persecution. Just living as a typical woman in a place where the smallest transgression can lead to a grisly murder is a type of persecution.
And if we did publically do this, at least it would make much more clear that we as a people disapprove of this sort of thing than the lack of action that we have taken in the past seems to suggest.
And what was her punishment? She was stoned to death (warning-- the link contains two still photos of her dying on the street, taken from a video that was shot of the murder).
A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.
As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Du’a Khalil Aswad as "an abhorrent murder" and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.
Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.
Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.
Oh. Not only did she spend a night with her boyfriend, but (horror of horrors) he belonged to a different religion.
And somehow that is supposed to justify what happened after that. A group of eight or nine men, some of whom were her relatives, went into a home where she was taking sanctuary, dragged her out onto the street and over a period of about half an hour murdered her by throwing stones at her.
It is tempting to blame the U.S. presence in Iraq, but that would be wrong. This may have happened in Iraq, but the U.S. occupation has nothing to do with it (though the failure of local authorities to do anything about it is typical of what we've seen from Iraqi police and government officials.) For one thing, this sort of thing happens all the time, all over the middle east. Women or girls who even look at a man the wrong way can face the most severe punishment, including not only death by stoning but also by stabbing, beating with clubs, fists or rifle butts, burning to death, being boiled alive and pretty much any other unspeakably brutal way you can think of that a man or a group of men could kill a woman. As religious fundamentalism has spread in Iraq (not just Islamic-- these people were members of a cult opposed to Islam), so have age old, and truly monstrous traditions for 'dealing' with anything other than a 100% subservient, docile, cowering and obedient woman.
We've also seen that post-Saddam Iraq has only followed along with the rest of the middle east in that most nations now deny women equal rights and privileges pertaining to civil matters like divorce, custody and inheritances as they give to men. In fact, some of the first laws passed by the Iraqi parliament under the new Constitution codified in law that women would be second class citizens. Girls still have the right to get an education beyond the elementary school level, but one wonders how long even that will last.
We must condemn 'honor killings' as nothing other than barbaric acts of the most hideous, cruel and foul murder. There must never be any such thing as 'honor' associated with such heinous crimes.
A start that we could do as Americans would be to press our government, when considering whether to grant asylum to refugees, to give preference to women over men from the middle east, specifically because they have reason to fear persecution. Just living as a typical woman in a place where the smallest transgression can lead to a grisly murder is a type of persecution.
And if we did publically do this, at least it would make much more clear that we as a people disapprove of this sort of thing than the lack of action that we have taken in the past seems to suggest.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
There are worse people in the world than those who club seals.
Jennifer Lopez (J-Lo), an actress who regularly wears fur, has recently received a series of mailed death threats from someone (or perhaps a group of people) who claims to be a member of PETA (the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). PETA responded by saying that they consider all violence to be wrong. And I will say that it is nearly impossible for any organization to police every single member. At the same time their refusal to explicitly condemn the threats is troubling in itself.
What really stands out to me though is that when such threats are made against celebrities (Lopez is not the first one to receive them), it is invariably against female celebrities. Certainly, you'd think that PETA would have more problems with men (some of whom actually enjoy killing the animals themselves, such as by trophy hunting) but when death threats are made they are much more likely to be directed at female celebrities like Lopez than they are at male celebrities.
What this causes me to believe is that there may well be a sexual predator, some wannabe Ted Bundy or BTK killer, who is using PETA as a cover to indulge his deranged and misogynist sexual fanatasies of terrorizing and eventually murdering women.
As I said, this sort of thing is virtually never directed at men, so if it is in fact a case of some psychotic killer hiding in the ranks of PETA then I hope both the organization and the police will cooperate to track this sicko down.
What really stands out to me though is that when such threats are made against celebrities (Lopez is not the first one to receive them), it is invariably against female celebrities. Certainly, you'd think that PETA would have more problems with men (some of whom actually enjoy killing the animals themselves, such as by trophy hunting) but when death threats are made they are much more likely to be directed at female celebrities like Lopez than they are at male celebrities.
What this causes me to believe is that there may well be a sexual predator, some wannabe Ted Bundy or BTK killer, who is using PETA as a cover to indulge his deranged and misogynist sexual fanatasies of terrorizing and eventually murdering women.
As I said, this sort of thing is virtually never directed at men, so if it is in fact a case of some psychotic killer hiding in the ranks of PETA then I hope both the organization and the police will cooperate to track this sicko down.
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