I know I have this still have remnants of the strong black woman in the back of my head. I'm fighting her all the time. So, I know I am biased toward thinking women need to suck it up and keep stepping no matter what. But I still think I legitimately see that white women have the opposite expectation of themselves.
From where a lot of black women sit, a large percentage of white women appear to be raised to believe that somebody is always going to take care of them, like a child. In the meantime, most of the black women I know were raised to never, ever believe that -- hence the Strong Black Woman trope which is just as false.
Though the strong-black-woman creates a false narrative to follow as well, black women who worked side by side with black men in the field during slavery have always knew they'd have to pull their own weight as an adult, inside or outside of a marriage,
White women do talk about embracing their strength all the time, as if they do realize there's childishness to overcome. But white feminists in particular, don't ever seem to talk about how behaving like an infant benefits white women to a certain extent.
Unlike black and brown women, some percentage of white women are married to the biggest oppressor in the land, white men. And a bunch of white women enjoy that secondary-power acquired through marriage just fine --temporary though it may be.
--which is why nobody but white feminists are confused as to why 53% of white women voted for the PussyGrabber-In-Chief. .
But the differing ways in which white women and black women are socialized is probably one of the reasons I'm having a hard time understanding how that little, fugly dawg Ansari Aziz wound up being central to any discussion about #MeToo and consent.
MY STORY
Most women have had an experience with a sexual aggressor. I am not an exception.
In the real life scenario described above, my decision making process was invisible to the man who had trapped me on the couch. Things could have gotten really ugly if I had pushed him away and said "no." But we'll never know because that never happened.
Frankly, thinking of the unpleasantness that might ensue if I said "no" was a tiny factor. But if I had decided that I did not want to have sex and the "no" remained in my head, if something sound he would NOT have had the obligation to read my mind.
I can't help but think that my attitude about "consent" is born inside my being raised to believe that I have to take responsibility for myself as an adult. I cannot even conceive of uttering a sentences like these when I'm accusing a man of forcing me to have oral sex.
AZIZ'S DATE SAID,
First of all, "Whoa....let's chill" means "wait" or "go slower." These words do not mean "no."
Second of all, context matters. For example:
"BELIEVE WOMEN" DOESN'T WORK FOR ADULTS IN ADULT SITUATIONS
Some women who have been definitely been assaulted want to give testimony about having been assaulted without telling us any of details or without making the details of what they've said make sense. Some women want to say "He attacked me" and "believe me" and let that be the end of it.
But real life doesn't work that way for adults, not even when you've been raped.
The problem with the #Believe Women section of the #MeToo Movement is that most of what we're identifying/mis-identifying as sexual harassment was never really about lack of belief. Men just said it was. A lot of workplace sexual harassment, sexual blackmail, and sexual assault was based in oh-who-cares more than lack of belief.
The rapes and near-rapes at work were happening in the dark. But a lot of the sexual harassment was out in the open. Therefore, #BelieveWomen is not the issue. Believe sexual harassment and sexual assault is a big damn deal is the issue.
White women, having taken over and making #MeToo's next step #BelieveWomen (rather than the more accurate #TimesUp) have inadvertantly made women's goals dovetail with the goals of male run corporations and congress.
Under the guise of *believing women* more than a few high profile men have been fired and/or told to resign quickly so that government bodies and corporations could save face and/or avoid damaging their brand.
From where a lot of black women sit, a large percentage of white women appear to be raised to believe that somebody is always going to take care of them, like a child. In the meantime, most of the black women I know were raised to never, ever believe that -- hence the Strong Black Woman trope which is just as false.
Though the strong-black-woman creates a false narrative to follow as well, black women who worked side by side with black men in the field during slavery have always knew they'd have to pull their own weight as an adult, inside or outside of a marriage,
White women do talk about embracing their strength all the time, as if they do realize there's childishness to overcome. But white feminists in particular, don't ever seem to talk about how behaving like an infant benefits white women to a certain extent.
Unlike black and brown women, some percentage of white women are married to the biggest oppressor in the land, white men. And a bunch of white women enjoy that secondary-power acquired through marriage just fine --temporary though it may be.
--which is why nobody but white feminists are confused as to why 53% of white women voted for the PussyGrabber-In-Chief. .
MY STORY
Most women have had an experience with a sexual aggressor. I am not an exception.
My job sent me to the east coast for a class. I met this guy that lived three or four states away in Texas.. I found him very attractive. We didn't really speak that much, but it wasn't long before I knew he found me attractive to
Eventually, on his birthday, he invites the entire class to go out and have a drink with him. The two of us? We wind up flirting all night. He gets drunk. About half of the class is staying at the same hotel. I'm the one he asks to help him to his room as I simultaneously volunteer.
I was going through a dry spell with men. But a couple of hours worth of flirting and my sexual-attention-deficit had been met. So we get half way to his room, and I ask him if he's okay. He says he is. We go our separate ways to our rooms.
I'm feeling sexually attractive and desirable. I'm good. I'm going to bed
But then he calls me. He says a bunch of people are continuing the party, having a few drinks. He's easy on the eyes and I'm getting a charge out of being around him, so I decide to go. But it takes me a while. In the hotel, I'm using three towels a day: floor covering, body, hair. I need more for the next day. So it takes me a little while to get to the after-party.
I get there and he's the only one in the room. I'm confused for a split second. I'm late, so maybe everybody left already or he's lied to me. And I'm thinking it's the latter.
I'm attracted to him so I go in anyway. We talk for a while. Then he moves closer. After some benign chatting, he's aggressively kissing me. And when I say "aggressively kissing me," he has sort of squatted, straddled me on the couch. I'm trapped. I was shocked-scared for a second or two
...but excited too.
In that moment, while I'm kissing him back, I'm trying to decide if I want to go forward or not. Ultimately, I decide that I do. I'd been lonely for a while. And, living in a small, mostly white town, I knew that I could be lonely for a good while longer.
I decide I don't want to miss it.
The next day I didn't like how we're interacting and I felt bad. But I never once thought he assaulted me. And I've been sexually assaulted before. This wasn't that.There are times, such as when a woman is unconscious or drugged when she isn't ABLE to say "no" when lack of audible consent is definitely the basis for a sexual assault or rape charge. But I don't think every time a man pressures a woman for sex and there's no audible "no" means there's been a sexual assault.
In the real life scenario described above, my decision making process was invisible to the man who had trapped me on the couch. Things could have gotten really ugly if I had pushed him away and said "no." But we'll never know because that never happened.
Frankly, thinking of the unpleasantness that might ensue if I said "no" was a tiny factor. But if I had decided that I did not want to have sex and the "no" remained in my head, if something sound he would NOT have had the obligation to read my mind.
I can't help but think that my attitude about "consent" is born inside my being raised to believe that I have to take responsibility for myself as an adult. I cannot even conceive of uttering a sentences like these when I'm accusing a man of forcing me to have oral sex.
AZIZ'S DATE SAID,
"...They walked the two blocks back to his apartment building, an exclusive address on TriBeCa’s Franklin Street, where Taylor Swift has a place too. When they walked back in, she complimented his marble countertops. According to Grace, Ansari turned the compliment into an invitation.
“He said something along the lines of, ‘How about you hop up and take a seat?’” Within moments, he was kissing her. “In a second, his hand was on my breast.” Then he was undressing her, then he undressed himself. She remembers feeling uncomfortable at how quickly things escalated.
When Ansari told her he was going to grab a condom within minutes of their first kiss, Grace voiced her hesitation explicitly. “I said something like, ‘Whoa, let’s relax for a sec, let’s chill.’”
She says he then resumed kissing her, briefly performed oral sex on her, and asked her to do the same thing to him. She did, but not for long. “It was really quick. Everything was pretty much touched and done within ten minutes of hooking up, except for actual sex.”
....Ansari also physically pulled her hand towards his penis multiple times throughout the night, from the time he first kissed her on the countertop onward. “He probably moved my hand to his dick five to seven times,” she said. “He really kept doing it after I moved it away.”
First of all, "Whoa....let's chill" means "wait" or "go slower." These words do not mean "no."
Second of all, context matters. For example:
- If a strange man walks up and grabs your hand and just walks beside you, that's assault in my mind. It's a mild assault. But it's frightening and threatening and should legitimately make the victim wonder what violent thing might happen next.
- If a blind date walks up and grabs your hand and walks beside you, that might be a little weird in the first few minutes of meeting someone -- implying an intimacy that isn't there yet. This probably isn't even a mild assault
- If a man you're dating walks up and grabs your hand and walks beside you, hopefully, that's a good thing.
By the same token...
- If a strange man walks up, takes your hand, and put it on his penis that ought to be called a sexual assault
- If a blind date walks up, takes your hand, and puts it on his penis right after he introduces himself and says "hello" that probably ought to be a sexual assault too. But even if women become in charge of 50% of the world like they should be, I doubt that's going to get crime status.
- if a man you've gone on a date with once, then agreed to go to his home or room, then takes your hand and puts it on his penis, he's a dawg and an aggressive, nasty date -- but probably not guilty of sexual assault. And if you stay after having said "slow down" but not "no" and he does it again, I know it's not going to fall into the sexual assault zone.
The woman who seems to be halfway accusing Ansari of sexual assault in this scenario doesn't have to be a white woman, but she sounds like she's been raised like one. I simply haven't met a woman who wasn't white who believed this level of infantile behavior means a man assaulted her in some way.
ANSARI'S DATE ALSO SAID
"Reticience."
He's being accused of not noticing her reticence?
Really?
In the 1970s and 1980s feminists were taking rape statistics of 1 in 4 women getting raped or sexually assaulted very seriously. Affluent white feminists (class counts) were talking their girls to self-defense classes.
But then they failed to teach their daughters how to say "no" and leave when they are
1) not afraid for their life
2) not afraid for their livelihood.
Really?
This scenario is ugly and sexually aggressive. But Aziz Ansari looks like he weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. And not one word of this story that suggests that Aziz was physically forceful.
Men and women communicate in non-verbal ways before, during, and before they have sex again. But when things grown folk don't like start happening to them, grown folk use words like, "Get out of my way. I don't like this. I'm leaving,"
By this woman's own account, nothing like this happened. And she didn't once hint she was afraid of him. And all of her non-verbals seemed to communicate what she said aloud, "slow down." So, I'm trying to figure out how she figures she didn't tacitly agree to give him oral sex etc. and stay there more of the same treatment.
Furthermore, the way the predominantly white press and some --not all- white feminists have been handling this story and the Larry Nassar story, it seems most people see white women and white children as equivalent in personal responsibility.
Or is the real problem that Ansari didn't treat his date like a princess while not failing to be white himself?
Even if I remove from my mind the possible racist element in this complaint(?) and believe every word of this woman's story-- and I do believe her--there's still too much of her own decision making missing from the story to really know the whole story.
And we need a whole story that's more like Lupita Nyong'os, Salma Hayek's and mine, in order to figure out if Ansari is more than just disgusting and sexually aggressive. The decisions Ansari's date made during every moment of that encounter matter and are part of what happened...contrary to popular belief(?)
ANSARI'S DATE ALSO SAID
Throughout the course of her short time in the apartment, she says she used verbal and non-verbal cues to indicate how uncomfortable and distressed she was. “Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points,” she said. “I stopped moving my lips and turned cold."
Whether Ansari didn’t notice Grace’s reticence or knowingly ignored it is impossible for her to say. “I know I was physically giving off cues that I wasn’t interested. I don’t think that was noticed at all, or if it was, it was ignored.”
"Reticience."
He's being accused of not noticing her reticence?
Really?
In the 1970s and 1980s feminists were taking rape statistics of 1 in 4 women getting raped or sexually assaulted very seriously. Affluent white feminists (class counts) were talking their girls to self-defense classes.
But then they failed to teach their daughters how to say "no" and leave when they are
1) not afraid for their life
2) not afraid for their livelihood.
Really?
This scenario is ugly and sexually aggressive. But Aziz Ansari looks like he weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. And not one word of this story that suggests that Aziz was physically forceful.
Men and women communicate in non-verbal ways before, during, and before they have sex again. But when things grown folk don't like start happening to them, grown folk use words like, "Get out of my way. I don't like this. I'm leaving,"
By this woman's own account, nothing like this happened. And she didn't once hint she was afraid of him. And all of her non-verbals seemed to communicate what she said aloud, "slow down." So, I'm trying to figure out how she figures she didn't tacitly agree to give him oral sex etc. and stay there more of the same treatment.
Furthermore, the way the predominantly white press and some --not all- white feminists have been handling this story and the Larry Nassar story, it seems most people see white women and white children as equivalent in personal responsibility.
Or is the real problem that Ansari didn't treat his date like a princess while not failing to be white himself?
Even if I remove from my mind the possible racist element in this complaint(?) and believe every word of this woman's story-- and I do believe her--there's still too much of her own decision making missing from the story to really know the whole story.
And we need a whole story that's more like Lupita Nyong'os, Salma Hayek's and mine, in order to figure out if Ansari is more than just disgusting and sexually aggressive. The decisions Ansari's date made during every moment of that encounter matter and are part of what happened...contrary to popular belief(?)
"BELIEVE WOMEN" DOESN'T WORK FOR ADULTS IN ADULT SITUATIONS
Some women who have been definitely been assaulted want to give testimony about having been assaulted without telling us any of details or without making the details of what they've said make sense. Some women want to say "He attacked me" and "believe me" and let that be the end of it.
But real life doesn't work that way for adults, not even when you've been raped.
The problem with the #Believe Women section of the #MeToo Movement is that most of what we're identifying/mis-identifying as sexual harassment was never really about lack of belief. Men just said it was. A lot of workplace sexual harassment, sexual blackmail, and sexual assault was based in oh-who-cares more than lack of belief.
Ben Affleck squeezed a woman's breast knowing he was on camera. His brother, Casey, was accused of encouraging men to expose themselves while working on his movie---and likely blew this off as "it was just a joke." According to Ellen Page, Brett Ratner talked about hearing a woman's vulva flapping as she walked by on some sound stage or other.
More importantly, a bunch of people ALREADY knew what kind of pig Harvey Weinstein was -- and they knew long before the scandal broke
A comedian made a public joke about Weinstein's forcing actresses to pretend they liked his sexual attention until they won an Oscar or Golden Globe and got some power. And none of the stars that heard about the joke said "boo" ...because they all knew.
The rapes and near-rapes at work were happening in the dark. But a lot of the sexual harassment was out in the open. Therefore, #BelieveWomen is not the issue. Believe sexual harassment and sexual assault is a big damn deal is the issue.
White women, having taken over and making #MeToo's next step #BelieveWomen (rather than the more accurate #TimesUp) have inadvertantly made women's goals dovetail with the goals of male run corporations and congress.
Under the guise of *believing women* more than a few high profile men have been fired and/or told to resign quickly so that government bodies and corporations could save face and/or avoid damaging their brand.
For example, I STILL don't know the details of what Senator John Conyers did. I don't know the details of what Charlie Rose did either. What I DO know about these two men being fired sounded like sexual harassment but not necessarily career ending sexual harassment.
However, I strongly suspect male run congress and male executives at PBS know a lot more than they ever told the public.
But what looks like a rush to judgement ultimately undermines #MeToo
There needs to be detailed PROOF of wrong doing
THEN creation of laws
so that some of these men can have more
than a lost job on their record.
Keeping in mind that blackmail always involves
a kind of coerced-cooperation, we need to change laws
so that some of these men can go to prison
where they belong for what I call "sexual blackmail."
The #MeToo movement has re-revealed that men blackmail women for things other than money. Men blackmail women for sex. It's time that the laws catch up with the realities of powerful men working with, more often than not, less powerful women. Men, anybody, who blackmails another person for sex needs to go to jail for a blackmail charge.
And some of the people, men and women, who help blackmailers cover their tracks need to be at risk for going to jail as accessories.
to be continued
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
There needs to be detailed PROOF of wrong doing
THEN creation of laws
so that some of these men can have more
than a lost job on their record.
Keeping in mind that blackmail always involves
a kind of coerced-cooperation, we need to change laws
so that some of these men can go to prison
where they belong for what I call "sexual blackmail."
The #MeToo movement has re-revealed that men blackmail women for things other than money. Men blackmail women for sex. It's time that the laws catch up with the realities of powerful men working with, more often than not, less powerful women. Men, anybody, who blackmails another person for sex needs to go to jail for a blackmail charge.
And some of the people, men and women, who help blackmailers cover their tracks need to be at risk for going to jail as accessories.
to be continued
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
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