22436: Justin: Re: 22427: Racine: Re: 22419: Simidor: Re Kathy Grey and rape (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Justin <justins@alacrityisp.net>

> > Grey's anger, however justified, is ethnocentrically sinful
> > (racist) when she lashes out at Haitian culture in general.
>
> I am so sick of hearing this!  I don't think Haitian rapists are rapists
because they are black, I don't think they want to rape me because I am
grimelle, or American - although some of them seem to want to rape me
because I am a Mambo and they are Protestants, and my house gives away more
food than their church!
>
> Haitian men who rape do it because their culture encourages rape and
refuses to punish rape.  It has nothing to do with racism and EVERYTHING to
do with S-E-X-I-S-M.

Racine, you don't have to believe black people are genetically inferior to
be racist.  Hardly ANYONE believes this anymore.  If you asked David Duke
why he thinks black countries/communities have so many problems I'm sure
he'd say it is largely the result of "their culture," which is exactly what
you're saying.

You are treating "Haitian culture" as if it were some kind of stand-alone
entity.  You are putting it in a causal vacuum.  This allows you to say
awful things like Haitian people are "sick" and lay the blame for everything
that's bad in Haiti on THEIR feet rather than OURS, which is where it
belongs.  White Euro-Americans like you and me are the ones who have
destroyed the fabric of Haitian society.  Not them.  In sociology there is a
term for the kind of reasoning you are using--"blaming the victim."

To the extent that Haiti has more rape than other countries (which you are
exaggerating, as others have pointed out) you have to wonder how big that
difference would be had they not been subjected to centuries of colonialism.
Poverty and oppression is the soil that deviant behavior grows in.  By
acknowledging this you aren't EXCUSING a man who commits rape.  You are
simply recognizing the fact that people are a product of their environment;
a product of their history.  This is where the dual responsibility of people
like you and me comes in.  This is also where you're supposed to realize
that child-like reasoning like "Haitians are bad becaus of their culture" is
utter nonsense.

If you haven't already, I would ask you to read the women quoted in Guy
Antoine's post.  They summed up my feelings pretty nicely.