I read this politicsusa.com article that stopped me dead in my tracks.
The Trump Campaign thought it would be great to change his image as a serial rapist and sexual predator by Donald Trump kissing a little black girl on stage during his rally in Wisconsin. The result was not just creepy, it was unimaginably tone deaf. These people clearly have no knowledge of the Black Experience in America.
As a father of black children to see that beautiful black girl, so like my own daughter, being manhandled and squirming away as she was forcibly kissed on the lips by this sexual predator, shielded by wealth and privilege to use women any way he wants? To reduce her obvious discomfort to a photo op? I’m compelled to spell out EXACTLY why this was wrong and triggers the hell out of me.
America has a long history in which black women and girls of ANY age were at white mens mercy for their survival from Chattel Slavery to Jim Crow segregation that lasted until the ’70’s
The history of our people’s ESPECIALLY our women’s abuse is recorded in our DNA. Even FLOTUS Obama’s The New York Times did a story on Michelle Obama’s racial ancestry. Even in this well-researched piece, there is a denial of whites to acknowledge or face the fact that Black women and girls have been legally raped by white men for 400 years.
The story begins with some genealogical research by the Times and genealogist, Megan Smolenyak:
“In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths, and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475. In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time….Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady…”
In the Antebellum South, children were sold away from parents, and treated just like cattle, as here. She’s a teenager, yet they refuse to acknowledge or even use the word rape. She’s basically furniture. This child is instead “impregnated,” rape and coercion were the coin of the realm for white men.
Henry L. Gates:
“Some of this inter-racial sexuality was voluntary, we now know, but far more was coerced, a reflection or a result of a profound imbalance of power. Because of a confluence of factors—the illegality of miscegenation, the prevalence of sexual abuse and rape as the source of these relationships, infidelity, guilt, shame, and disgrace—both black people and white people had a certain interest in keeping these relationships in the dark, as it were.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, a visiting Harvard law professor:
“That we’ve just started speaking openly about the complexity of black ancestry doesn’t surprise … There’s also a lot of white Southern anxiety in denials of these tangled bloodlines. Acknowledging them requires admitting what went on in the South. . . . Some of those planters really were living like polygamous patriarchs of old with wives and concubines and bunches of kids. That’s the truth of early American history.”
200 plus years of slavery was about more than just generating vast wealth. This was a system of well documented sexual control of Black Men, Women & Children. Sex was used as a weapon by White men all during American History. During slavery, segregation and even today. It symbolized white male power. The Dred Scott decision and 3/5ths rule established any children forced on a black woman was black even with European ancestry. 3/4 of African Americans & Caribbeans have one white ancestor perhaps more. No other American racial group is determined by the sexual coercion and depredations of white men, like Donald Trump.
So yes, there is something defiantly wrong with this picture. And I’d appreciate him keeping his disgusting hands and lips off our little girls.
photo credit – politicsusa.com
I’m stunned at the number of Trump supporters who are apparently hunting down articles for no other reason than to comment about how racism and sexual abuse aren’t as prevalent as many reliable studies show. To summarize Yarde’s article, here’s what’s wrong with this picture: 1. Consent doesn’t matter. Power matters. Trump demonstrated that if a little girl doesn’t want to kiss an adult man who is a stranger to her, that’s her tough luck. If he has social status, or if not kissing him would create an awkward situation, then she’s pretty much required to let him kiss her.… Read more »
I hate these type of arguments, but I hate dogma and assumptions about men even more, whether they are black or white is irrelevant to me. I’m not going to get into who rapes more, because first of all it’s not a contest. Second it has very little to do with real racism. Third, I have known far too many good black men, had far too many black friends, and know of far too many black men that hold my respect to even think about besmirching them in order to win the internet. However, I’m a digger. When I see… Read more »
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” Booker T washigton
Fact of the matter is that this is a Trump hating site and will do what it can so as to bash him as much as they can until the elections are over. It won’t end until Hillary gets into office but the pace will only increase if he does get into office.
If you ever want a different perspective on these issues, a “no holds barred” look up a guy named Tommy Sotomayer. He tells it like it is
First- I thank you for reading my post. Thank you for the words of encouragement for those who found value in this piece. This is a blanket response to current and future critics of this piece. I unapologetically stand by every word. Remember. Chattel Slavery was just that. Humans reduced to the level of livestock. But you already knew this, your pearl clutching isn’t convincing. Slaveowners most certainly did rape slaves. Women & children. Dispute that claim if you wish I suspect that a non-master doing that would have problems, but they would essentially be in trouble for using another… Read more »
Nice try but the fact that slave owners raped their slaves doesn’t prove that there is a current epidemic of white men raping black women and girls today NOR do any of your sources. Blogs don’t count. FBI statistics indicate that white men are quite unlikely to be the perpetrator in the rape of black women whether we look at raw data or proportion of total population. Black men are far more likely than white men to be reported as the perpetrator by black rape victims, Hyperbole is a useful rhetorical device but you’re trying to prove literal truth and… Read more »
You’re technically right, but whites make up 57% of rapists while being 70% of the population and blacks are 27% of rapists while only being 13% of the population. (Rainn.org)
It’s statistical sleight of hand to not take total population size into account.
I did not include adjustment for population in the information that I submitted because it was not an aspect of the study, but your assessment is largely correct. Still, to me, we are all brothers, be we trans, gay, black, white or purple, and we are all under attack. Division will end us, unity will save us, so what do we all think our enemies are going to try to do? Right? i think that we can all agree on at least that reality, Time we start to circle the wagons lads. We are on our own, and the only… Read more »
It wasn’t just white people who were complicit in the slave trade. I would suspect that her parents might have been complicit in the photo op. Interesting how THAT doesn’t draw any rage considering the history of the slave trade.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41431
“Black women and girls have been legally raped by white men for 400 years.”
Does anyone fact check these articles? Does the author truly believe there is a current epidemic of white men raping black women and girls? I would love to see that citation.
Alex. Shame on you, seriously. To take something like a child, regardless of race, cringing a bit from a kiss and turning into rape speech propaganda. How did the admin not catch this? Or did Alex just BLM his way into spreading this toxic narrative. But this is good keeps me more aware toxic material regardless of the shape takes and who it comes from
We agree this picture just is wrong and just one more reason why he should not be our next president.
The “picture” is just wrong. Why s the “picture” wrong? Because a white man is kissing a little black girl? A man kissing a child? That’s why men aren’t allowed to sit next to unattended children on planes. Thanks ladies.
Alex, You are really full of shit…This is coming from another Black man. We as Black men are doing more damage to our Black women and children than White men through neglect, abuse, abandonment, rape, incest, disrespect, drugs, pimping…. Where is your outrage over that Alex? “No other American racial group is determined by the sexual coercion and depredations of white men, like Donald Trump.” GMP, this is really low on your part. I thought I had seen (and read) it all…but this has to be a new low. You are now in the gutter. People used to write stuff… Read more »
There is nothing that I could add that would not make me sound like a babbling idiot after reading this.
This site has become nothing more than a hate site.
I could not agree with your more Rick.
It’s pathetic.
THANK YOU ALEX!