I was sick the first time I viewed this image a week ago when the story broke. The crazed, reckless cop barrelling and running towards a group of teens celebrating at a pool party in a Dallas suburb. We all know the facts by now: black youth told to go back to Section 8 housing when they showed up at a community pool, a physical attack by 2 white women on a 19 yr. old black girl, crazy cop resigns and it's doubtful any criminal charges will be filed against him or the white females for assault. We can expect this as just one more story to be filed under "2015 Edition of flagrantly racist police behavior caught on tape". But I wanna explore something that seemed to be intentionally overlooked by the media's daily analysis of this event last week: the sexualization of this particular police brutality.
The officer came to the scene forcing teenaged black males to the ground while ignoring the white teens which didn't really shock anyone. But when it came to this 14 year old girl he man-handled her to the ground by her braids and head and then straddled her for what is reported to have been around 15 minutes. A petite, bikini-clad 14 year old black girl was face down in the grass with a white man on her back for 15 minutes because she was that much of a threat to public safety. It felt like we all watched some type of violent cop-porn where she was literally under the weight of his control and state authority. Her small adolescent frame didn't protect her from what many of us have had to learn - we aren't safe from sexual violence anywhere or by anyone. The fact is, this happened to her because she is young, black and female. None of us can even fathom this same scene happening to a teenage, white girl with long blonde hair in Texas or anywhere else. We can't even imagine that scene where the shoe is on the other foot, because that shoe was never meant to be on the other foot.
We remember the video of a California Highway Patrolman beating a black woman with mental illness on the side of the highway last summer and the Oklahoma cop accused of sexually assaulting a half dozen black women last Fall, so this imagery is still fresh in our minds. But this video was a shock to our consciousness. The teen in the video is in full adolescence, not to be mistaken for a woman, and that made her particularly vulnerable in a sexual way that was lost in much of last week's analysis of the video. Media pundits were quick to ask if the officer's conduct was racially motivated as if they truly thought it could be anything else, but would not tread on the dangerous terrain of sexuality because that is the true lightening rod no one wants to touch. It was intentionally avoided because America does not confront race and racism in general, and certainly not the uncomfortable mix of sex, race and power.
Also, it din't go unnoticed that NOW and other feminist organizations didn't voice their anger or even a little concern about what we all saw acted upon this young girl. I suppose they've been so busy with bringing college campus rape to the forefront they just forgot. So once again, we got crickets from the white mainstream feminist groups. Not that it surprised me, but I'm just sayin'. Another group that I was surprised and disappointed that did not show public outrage in defense of this child was black men. At least not online or in the news did black men as a group, fathers and brothers, overwhemlingly show any unified voice of protectionism. I kept waiting to hear from them in some powerful way that this violation won't be tolerated.
We need to be careful about these occurences, their constant re-play in the media and it's affect on our collective psyche and how black girls bodies are deemed violable by white men with guns and badges. Our girls are uniquely vulnerable in spite of the attention that police abuse on black people receives of late, because that attention has focused solely on the abuses and killings of black males. But the truth is that whether its body searches, which should be done by a female officer, women and girls need to be educated of their rights and how to handle interactions with law enforcement just as our men. It shouldn't be necessary to keep pointing out that Black Women's Lives Matter, Too.
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