Much has been written on this blog about gender violence, sexual assault and the rape of African women. Just to put gender violence in a global context here is an article by Mark Anthony Neal from this weeks Black Commentator of a Black woman (a full time student at North Carolina Central University) who says she was raped, sodomised and beaten at a party at Duke University in North Carolina last March. Reading through the case I am reminded of the Zuma rape trial in South Africa. In both cases the complainants have been assaulted in the media and in their respective communities. In the case of Khwezi, the childhood sexual assaults she suffered and her HIV status have been used to discredit her claim of rape plus the daily demonstrations by pro Zuma supporters which consist of abusing K in various ways. In the Duke case, the complainant’s marital status ( a single mother of two) and dancer (she was hired to dance at a bachelors party) have been used in the same way by the media, the university and within her own Black community.

As the writer states, violence against women is violence against women but in this case it is impossible not to acknowledge the intersection of race and sex making it is clear the woman was raped because she was Black. He explains this as follows. Since the default request for exotic dancers are white blondes one can safely assume that the Duke students made a request for a Black female dancer

Thus in all likelihood, regardless of what happened inside of 610 N. Buchanan Blvd, the young men were hoping to consume something that they felt that a black woman uniquely possessed. If these young men did in fact rape, sodomize, rob, and beat this young woman, it wasn’t simply because she was a woman: but because she was a black woman.

Historically Black women have been constructed as “hypersexual, insatiable and exotic” both in the African colonial settings as well as in white supremacist America. In the contemporary world of popular culture, music videos and in particular hip hop/rap videos played 24/ 7 on Black entertainment channels, MTV and radio stations across the country, which he describes as “simply the vehicles for the corporately controlled circulation of black women’s bodies”, contribute to maintaining this perception of Black women. The author writes that the consumption (and appropriation) of Black music by white males may have contributed to the rationale in the minds of the rapists that this Black woman was theirs to be had.

The message is clear: black women and their bodies have little value, little protection, and are accessible to anyone who feels entitled to them. Thus, it should not be surprising that a generation of young white men, for whom the consumption of hip-hop has been second nature, would find a black exotic dancer desirable or in the worse case scenario, sexually available to them, even if she resists their advances.

Like the case of Khwezi, the complainant in this case has also been ostracised, ignored and endured additional abuse from within her own community. In Khwezi’s case, the defendant is the deputy President of the country, powerful, played an active role in the struggle against apartheid, is rich and privilege. She on the other hand has a “sexual” history - no matter that she was sexually abused as a child. Quite possibly in the minds of many even that too was her own doing. The author explains this behaviour in terms of “Black Respectability” and the tensions within the Black community between those considered respectable and those considered unsavory. I think this behaviour can be applied to South Africa as well as the US though there are historical and cultural differences in respect to the constructions of race and gender.

He uses the analogy of Rosa Parks (respectable) and Claudette Colvin (unwed teen mother therefore unsavory) who had refused to sit at the back of the bus 10 months prior to Rosa Parks but who was considered by the Civil Rights movement as unsuitable. Thus the silence of the Black community in support of the complainant is simply a contemporary version of the Parks v Colvin - we do not support those who engage in or are perceived to be “immoral” according to the standards we have set as a community.

Such a point was made by Herald-Sun columnist John McCann – in many ways the “voice” of Black Durham – who suggested that the case was about the “consequences of violating moral laws.” (”Thin Line Separates Criminal, Immoral”, 29 March 06) He later added in a subsequent column that the young woman was at 512 Buchanan Blvd. to “arouse and titillate young men who allegedly stumbled the same way she did inappropriately using the body and mind” (Criticism comes with my terrority“)

We return then to the belief that when it comes to rape and sexual assault, women bring it on themselves. It is their rape rather than the man’s or men’s rape. If and a big if hangs over both cases in the minds of many, the women were in fact raped, then they have only themselves to blame. One an exotic dancer and single mother and the other a HIV+ woman with a sexual history. The story does not change. It is always about the woman being raped but never about the man or men who are doing the raping.

As a black female, you go to a party, you’re expected to dance, you’re expected to be sexually provocative. You [are expected to] want to be touched, to be grabbed, to be fondled… As if they’re re-enacting a rap video or something. As if we’re there to be their video ho, basically. We can’t just be regular students here. We can’t just go to a party and enjoy ourselves.” Black female student at Duke University,  South  North Carolina

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