Thoroughly Disgusted

pookielocks — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:44:59 -0500

What that poor woman went through is absolutely unspeakable! I cannot fathom why the perps weren't charged with a hate crime. She will be in my thoughts and prayers as she begins her horrendous journey towards healing.

http://www.taking-back-control.com

Disgraceful

Meghan Hoffman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:31:26 -0500

I am a 23yr senior in Early Childhood Education at Temple University but used to go to West Virginia University. During my time in West Virginia I have been to Logan County. The place gives my the absolute creeps- I have never seen poverty, lack of education and racial tension as I have seen in that county. Those people should be charged 100% with a hate crime, there is NO DOUBT in my mind it was exactly that, socio economic disaster and 0 form of education. The government needs to think long and hard about the education system in this country and focus on rural southern schools just as much as inner city. Between this and Jena 6 we as the people need to demand change.

Want to Donate?

lainad — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:04:17 -0500

Deidra over at Black and Missing but not Forgotten has started a Paypal dontation for the Williams family. Scroll down on the left side.

What those six people did to

Dana J. Tuszke — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:01:37 -0500

What those six people did to Megan Williams is so awful it makes me want to vomit. I don't see how the county prosecutor can not charge them with a hate crime. Thank you for reporting this.

Amen to that

Lisa Stone — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:52:11 -0500

There's no way to cover this sickening story without considering the race factor. I applaud Jill from Feministe. You have terrific links here.

Laina, please keep updating this story for us? I would love to know whether the family opens a legal defense fund. Thank you so much for this post.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Exactly

Maria Niles — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:31:58 -0500

Your final paragraph says it all. It is the acknowledgment that race matters which is important.

Thanks for this post and perspective.

Kleenex® Let It Out™ Blog
Beyond Help

The West Virgina Rape Case - Not a Hate Crime?

lainad — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:38:47 -0500

The six Logan County, West Virginia residents who were charged with the week-long forcible confinement of a 20 year-old black woman who was beaten, sexually assaulted and forced to eat dog and rat feces will not be charged with a hate crime.

Last Sunday police visited a mobile home in a remote area after an anonymous tip was called in from someone who had witnessed the abuse. When the police left their car to speak to one of the suspects, Frankie Brewster who was sitting on the porch, they saw the woman though the window, limping towards the door. Besides being beaten and raped for at least a week, the woman had her hair ripped and cut out and been stabbed in her left leg at least four times. Medical reports believe the wounds were inflicted at least a week ago. Police are still looking for two more suspects, one who might have lured the girl over the Internet, kidnapping her and taking her to the house.

The discussion of this assault being constituted as a hate crime began when it was revealed that all of the women’s assailants, three men and three women, were white. More importantly, the victim told police that she was repeatedly called the ‘N-word’ right before each stabbing. Also, another one of the suspects, Karen Burton allegedly told the victim that she was being beaten because she was black.

Yesterday it was announced that hate charges would not be added to the present state charges that have been laid against the six suspects. If found guilty of the numerous kidnapping, forcible confinement assaults charges, the six will probably each serve life in prison, so if convicted of a hate crime (which is a Federal charge) it will not make much difference in the outcome. On a side note, state prosecutors also declined to press hate crime charges against two white teenagers from the same area of West Virginia when they were arrested for beating and repeatedly running over (with their car) a gay African-American man in 2000. The argument seems to be that unless the crime consists of denying someone a ‘federally protected’ right, such as voting, gaining employment or housing,’ racially motivated crimes do not automatically constitute as a hate crime.

While bloggers have been reporting on the case since it broke on Monday, there has been a bit of hesitancy by some as to how much they should comment on the story. Perhaps it is the recent development that the victim might have had a previous relationship with one of the suspects, therefore changing the ‘racial assault’ to a domestic assault….which while still considered heinous, it serves as a way to downplay the viciousness of the crime.

Rachel from Rachel’s Tavern looks at the way how some reports are emphasising the poverty-stricken, habitual criminally-minded suspects ( who have 108 criminal charges between them) by labelling them ‘white trash, thereby separating their actions on the basis that they are somehow not really ‘white.’ Jill from Feministe has this to say:

It takes a special kind of evil to do what those people did. But it’s not rare. It’s not a symptom of poverty. It’s not about “white trash.” For every one of us who reads these news articles in horror, there’s an upper middle class white college kid somewhere who idolizes Patrick Bateman and thinks that misogynist torture is kinda cool — you know, if you’re classy about it. The focus on the class background of these torturers obscures the larger picture of what they did. It makes it comprehensible — those pieces of trailer trash aren’t quite human, which is why they were capable of doing this. Only subhuman hillbillies are racist.

Is this another indication is that this is another example of (North) America’s history of sexual and racial violence towards black woman? What About our Daughters seems to think so. She has compiled an uncomfortably high amount of black women whose disappearances, rapes and murders that have garnered little (or any) media attention in comparison to reports of celebrities going without panties. Stephanie Dunn also weighs in at New Black Man taking a further look into how the media reports on these issues, commenting on the Don Imus case and how the attention quickly moved its focus from the black female basketball players and gravitiated towards the 'role' that Hip-Hop played in it - the dialogue about why what Imus said was so damaging towards black woman got lost in the blame game.

While there is certianly a technical reason as to why the country prosecutor declined to press hate crime charges, I think what they are conveniently forgetting is that it is not just the potential for more jail time or to convict on federal charges that people feel that they deserve - it is the public, moral and legal acknowledgement that what these six suspects are accused of doing was primarily on the fact that she was a black woman. That not only to violent acts perpetrated on the basis of race actually exist, but are punishable under the law.

I'll report the latest news about this case in the comments.