Next week, we will finally hear Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony detailing her memory of Judge Brett Kavanaugh attempting to violently rape her in high school, when he was 17 and she was 15. Dr. Ford has been harassed, threatened, and bullied by the GOP Senate Judiciary Committee, while their minions in the public have doxxed her and sent so many credible death threats the FBI has opened an investigation. It’s ironic given that Dr. Ford has been pleading for standard procedure to be followed and the FBI be allowed to reopen Kavanaugh’s background check in order to investigate her claims. The GOP is desperate to prevent that, shamefully lying that this is not what the FBI does, despite these same Senators stating the opposite on record multiple times in the past. That’s how desperate they are to hide whatever the FBI would find in an investigation. And considering Kavanaugh has already been caught bending the truth in his confirmation hearings about an entirely different matter, I can empathize with their panic. They’re trying to get an ethically suspect man onto the highest court in the land, and their plan was, evidently, to just move as quickly as they could before anyone noticed he was ethically suspect.
Well, that “just run fast and hope no one notices” ploy did not go according to plan, and here we are.
Now the right has moved from “he didn’t do it”– an obvious untruth, given the ethical gymnastics the GOP is performing to prevent the FBI from calling even a single witness– to “it doesn’t matter if he did. He was so young!”
This is, in a word, nonsense.
Whenever a woman accuses a man of sexual assault, men (and even, tragically, some women) line up to attack the victim and excuse the perpetrator. They eagerly tumble onto the internet in dozens, breathlessly calling the woman a liar, blaming her for the assault, saying she had it coming.
And, increasingly, what we see is “it’s fine that he did it.” The reasons are myriad– he was drunk; he was male; “boys will be boys”; and even, shockingly, asserting sexual assault is not actually a crime. Conservatives have focused their efforts in Kavanaugh’s case around his age at the time of the attempted rape– 17. “He was too young to be held accountable all these years later,” goes the tale.
This is a dangerous lie for multiple reasons. First, it teaches teenagers that it’s fine when teenage boys sexually assault teenage girls. Powerful people will stand between the boy and consequences— forever. A girl who comes forward will be humiliated, called a liar, blamed for the assault, instructed that it’s not such a big deal, told she deserved it, told that the boy’s future is unquestionably and permanently more important and more valuable than her own. She is taught that if a boy tries to rape you– or succeeds– the culture will rise up to protect him. No one in authority will stand with you. In fact, you will be punished by authority figures for even trying to tell boys no.
Conservatives are enthusiastically teaching young women and girls that they are less important than boys and men. In fact, conservatives are enthusiastically teaching young women and girls that they are less important than property. Teenagers are often arrested and charged with vandalism, police stating that the behavior needs to be “nipped in the bud” early to prevent further crime. But sexual assault is winked away with “boys will be boys.” These are the “values” of “values voters.”
However, the idea that a boy is intrinsically valuable– much more valuable than any girl he would ever assault– only holds true when the boy is white.
When an unarmed Black teenager is shot and killed, rather than mourning the loss and holding up his youthful innocence, white people rush to defame the boy. Trayvon Martin was 17 and unarmed when he was murdered by George Zimmerman. The very same people now defending Kavanaugh rushed to smear Trayvon’s character with school discipline records and “tough-looking” selfies. Michael Brown was 18 when the same people now defending Kavanaugh called Brown a “thug” responsible for his own murder. Little Tamir Rice was just 12, but the same people defending Kavanaugh still blamed this child, playing with a toy gun in a public park in an open carry state, for his own murder and called him a “thug.”
Black victims are routinely framed as dangerous and suspect, while white shooters are framed as acting in self-defense, as “troubled,” or as “social outcasts who just needed a friend.” Their good qualities always foregrounded— “brilliant,” “soft-spoken,” “an honor student.” Sweet, smiling pictures are used in the press, while the press rips apart the internet to locate the most “thuggish” possible picture of the murder victim.
When a white boy sexually assaults a girl, men claim the boy is the real victim– victimized by the girl’s truthful report. The crime is winked away as natural male behavior while the girl’s vain hope that her victimization be taken seriously becomes the real crime. When Black boys are murdered, white people claim the shooter is the real victim, acting in righteous self-defense when faced with a savage, barely-human thug.
When Black boys are accused of sexual assault, the very same people laughing and winking at Kavanaugh’s “red-blooded natural male behavior” scream for their deaths– even after those boys are exonerated by DNA evidence.
The people excusing Kavanaugh– essentially claiming it’s his right to force himself on a girl– are cut from the same cloth as people who believe Black boys should be executed for the same behavior. The sitting president of the United States believes it was Kavanaugh’s right– and his own— to sexually assault women but still calls for the execution of the Central Park Five, after they have been proven completely innocent by DNA testing.
This is what we’re dealing with here.
Seventeen-year old boys are not feral animals. They’re a few months away from voting. At 17, you’re considered old enough to enlist in the military. This means the US military is officially certain that people of that age possess the decision-making skills to make a life-altering commitment, and the discipline to serve in the US military. We believe people of that age possess the decision-making skills and discipline to choose a university and a major, to drive a car, to work. In eight states, it’s even old enough to purchase a firearm without parental consent.
Yet a sizable segment of our population believes it’s a minor, irrelevant issue that Kavanaugh at 17 attempted to force himself on a 15-year old girl, and that the real crime is her accusation. They believe no 17-year old boy should be held accountable for their behavior . . . unless they’re Black.
This isn’t about sexual assault. It’s about cultural power. It’s about protecting the rights of wealthy white men to victimize the rest of us without consequences. When a wealthy white man is involved, the victim is always the white man.
This is who we’re about to put on the Supreme Court. This is who runs the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan, and Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley, and Devin Nunes, and the entire white male conservative cadre– the real American thugs.
Shakespeare wrote Measure for Measure in 1604. That play is 414 years old. And yet it perfectly encapsulates the power dynamic white male America works strenuously to protect. The “false” of white men “o’erweighs the true” of everyone else.
Contact your Senators here.
Bitter Gertrude 