THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506300026
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
It's a ``shot'' that should be heard and felt around the country. Faced with a long history of racial unity, of standing together, solely because of skin color, to fight the white man's racism, some courageous African Americans broke ranks recently to stand up for human dignity.
They told it as it is.
The homecoming ``celebration'' planned in Harlem for Mike Tyson last week, to include a parade and street festival, had to be scaled back by promoters to a news conference after black women spoke out against violence against them, violence that Tyson has embraced throughout his life; and many fair and reasonable black men supported them. Black women refused to honor a convicted sexual offender, a black man who had raped one of their own; they refused to grant moral ``redemption'' to a man who has yet to show any objective evidence of it. They said, ``Enough's enough. No more.''
It's about time.
Like all people, African-American women deserve to be free from the tyranny of abuse - whether the abuse is at the hands of government, the judicial system, the man down the street or the man in the next room. For too long black women have been quiet in their suffering, stoical, raising families alone, enduring. A black woman who publicly - in the ``white world'' - accused a black man of wrong, was regarded stereotypically as a traitor to her race, or in the case of sexual violence, a slut who ``asked for it.''
And then Anita Hill came along, and perceptions and loyalties changed. Some enlightenment occurred.
I doubt that the Harlem protest, poignantly marked by a candlelight vigil for black women and girls who have been victims of violence, would have happened without Anita Hill. Although Hill's testimony against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was dismissed by many within the black community as the vindictive complaint of a rejected woman, it opened the gate for more truth-telling. Harlem is just the beginning.
While I congratulate and support the African-American women and men who refused to sanction an event that implicitly would have excused or minimized sexual violence against their ``sisters,'' I also know how insidious their longtime enemy, racism, is. The necessary fight against racism should in no way be compromised by the principled position they took. The battles against violence and against racism are related, but separate: Responsible, thinking black men and women can fight both.
But I also would tell these protesters that racism is my enemy, too. Every time a black person is treated unfairly because of the perpetrator's racism, I, too, am hurt; my safety and dignity, too, are diminished; my community, which is their community, is violated.
I spent the day after Tyson's news conference in district court in North Carolina, awaiting a hearing in a crime in which I was the victim, and there witnessed that all-too-familiar racism rear its ugly head. Three young black people, two women, one man, all charged with assault, made their first appearances, and each requested a court-appointed lawyer. The judge, white and elderly, asked the man where he lived; upon hearing the answer, he exclaimed: ``Oh, a Mama's boy, eh? Another one of THOSE living with his Mama.''
Amid loud snickers from the predominantly white courtroom audience, the judge continued: ``Since this is not child-support court, I'm not going to ask you how many kids you've got running around.''
When the judge spoke to the two women, he addressed them by their first names, ``strange-sounding'' names that he stumbled over and later, in their absence, ridiculed.
No white defendant was treated in such a demeaning fashion.
The laughter rippled through the crowd. What was clearly a disgrace was amusing to these people. Their response was much more disheartening than an old man's ignorant and prejudicial remarks. The judge represents the law of the land, but he has various checks on the exercise of his authority. The people represent the everyday social order, and the only checks they have are internal: conscience, respect, dignity, compassion.
Every person who laughed at the judge's comments was an accomplice to racism. Such people cannot be expected to care for the rights and welfare of anyone else, regardless of race.
And yet, I suppose, they, too, are ``victims'' - of lessons that have made them hard and cold to the plight of another human being. Of neglect, abuse, ignorance, poverty of heart and spirit. Perhaps it will be in the common and acknowledged bond of ``victimization'' that we Americans finally will become united.
Telling the truth, as the women of Harlem did, is an important part of the American bond. Without it, we cannot begin to take a ``shot'' and help one another. MEMO: Ms. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor of The Virginian-Pilot and
The Ledger-Star.
by CNB