Re: Statement on New York Festival Attacks

[Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

margaret, maybe I misexpressed myself.  I am not defending the glen
ridge boys or what they did! But if you use the word "torture" for an
act that causes no pain or damage, that the woman willingly  performs on
herself,then what word do you use to describe rapes like the one in Sri
lanka you posted us about? The Glen ridge girl went along with the
"game" because she wanted the boys to like her--not because they were
physically forcing her, as in your coke bottle example. Advocates for
the retarded were divided over whether her mental disability should play
a role in determining her capacity to consent. (She was mildly retarded
-- just enough to make her socially marginal,but  not like a four year
old or anything)  Etc Etc.
  My point wasn't to justify or excuse when the boys did.  BUT I think
what the Central Park men did was different -- they terrified women,
assaulted them, stripped them naked and reduced them to tears. And stole
their money too.  The CP women were more upset than the glen ridge girl,
who actually continued to like the boys who had humiliated her.   i
think the woman who wrote that editorial was, at bottom, preparing the
way for a defense of the CP men -- as victims of racist prosecution etc.
When the sectarian left has to choose between race and gender, they pick
race every time. and when it's black and brown men versus black and
brown women, as in CP, they change the subject.

Katha