When White Women's Tears Matter More than Black Lives
By now, we have all heard about Amy Cooper, the White woman going viral after calling the police on Christian Cooper, no relation, a Black man after he asked her to put her dog on a leash in The Ramble, a nature preserve in New York City.
Rather than leash her dog, Amy instead chooses to argue with Christian, escalating to what happens next in the viral video, which shows Amy calling the police. She threatens Christian, saying “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”
Amy knew what she was doing, and it can be seen in her choice of words: I am going to call the police and tell them, as a White woman, that you a Black man, are threatening my life. She made a fake 911 call on a false accusation of a Black Man attacking her.
And while she has since lost her job, her ability to even attend Central Park, and even her dog, charges for those false allegations that could have brought harm or even death to Christian need to be brought on her. Making false allegations is still a crime, whether Black or White.
 |
| Emmett Till |
In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally and violently murdered by a gang of white men when Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white woman, said that he “grabbed her and verbally threatened her” and that she was “just scared to death.”
He was taken, beaten, murdered, and his body was thrown into a local body of water.
In 2017, Donham admitted that she fabricated the entire story. That lie cost Emmett his life. Donham is currently 85. The injustice of that murder and subsequent decades without justice became one of the catalysts for the civil rights movements.
But it is also so embedded in the Black psyche, one can’t only help but feel its repercussions in several more current events.
Mere days ago, Patricia Ripley, a 45-year-old White Woman, claimed she was driving with her son Alejandro around 9 p.m. when supposedly, two black men forced their car to stop. Patricia told police that one of the men got out of their vehicle and demanded drugs from her. After she said she didn’t have any drugs, one of the men, who had a knife, stole her phone and kidnapped Alejandro, who was autistic and non-verbal.
Alejandro's body was found in a canal hours later.
However, officials managed to get their hands on video footage showing Patricia allegedly pushing Alejandro into a canal Thursday evening around 7:30 p.m.
Residents nearby heard screaming which led them to that canal, where they were able to rescue Alejandro. A mere hour later, Patricia allegedly brought Alejandro to a different canal near where his body was found. Needless to say, Patricia has been arrested.
 |
| Carolyn Donham and husband |
In 2017, Donham admitted that she fabricated the entire story. That lie cost Emmett his life. Donham is currently 85. The injustice of that murder and subsequent decades without justice became one of the catalysts for the civil rights movements.
But it is also so embedded in the Black psyche, one can’t only help but feel its repercussions in several more current events.
Mere days ago, Patricia Ripley, a 45-year-old White Woman, claimed she was driving with her son Alejandro around 9 p.m. when supposedly, two black men forced their car to stop. Patricia told police that one of the men got out of their vehicle and demanded drugs from her. After she said she didn’t have any drugs, one of the men, who had a knife, stole her phone and kidnapped Alejandro, who was autistic and non-verbal.
Alejandro's body was found in a canal hours later.
However, officials managed to get their hands on video footage showing Patricia allegedly pushing Alejandro into a canal Thursday evening around 7:30 p.m.
Residents nearby heard screaming which led them to that canal, where they were able to rescue Alejandro. A mere hour later, Patricia allegedly brought Alejandro to a different canal near where his body was found. Needless to say, Patricia has been arrested.
While we are grateful that footage was found so that Patricia could be arrested, the ease in which Patricia blamed this horrible murder on two Black men, and the ease in which law enforcement could have believed it. Patricia could have caused the harm or even the death of multiple Black Men. But Patricia would have rather play into the stereotype of Black men as big brutes, violent and drug-crazed, so much so that they would be able and capable of kidnapping a woman's son from her for drugs. Patricia, as a white woman, counted on being believed and villainized Black Men to hide what she allegedly had done. What about Cornerstore Caroline? Bystander Jason Littlejohn posted footage on his Facebook page of Teresa Klein, a white woman now dubbed #CornerstoreCaroline, who called the police on a 9-year-old Black boy named Jeremiah Harvey.
Jeremiah was leaving a crowded bodega with his mother, Someko Bellille, and younger sister when Teresa began screaming at him, “That’s right. Her son grabbed my a — ,”“And, she [the mother] decided to yell at me. There are security cameras in this bodega.”
Teresa also claimed that she called the police because the child’s mother was aggressive, which, if some crazed woman was making wild accusations about my 9-year-old child, I and any other mom worth her salt might act a little aggressively too. “And, she [the mother] decided to yell at me.” Teresa yelled on the phone.”
Meanwhile, both Jeremiah and his sister are seen weeping, clinging to their mother while Teresa continues to berate them, insisting that Jeremiah had assaulted her. Onlookers pled with Teresa, still, she insisted Jeremiah had assaulted her.
A few days later, Teresa returned to the bodega to view the surveillance video footage from the incident inside the store. As residents and local media stood by, Teresa watched the footage, showing Jeremiah’s backpack grazing Klein’s backside. Jeremiah’s hands, which did not touch Teresa, were in plain sight the entirety of the surveillance footage.
Teresa has since apologized, but Jeremiah has rejected that apology, saying “I don’t forgive this woman, and she needs help.”
Mere days after that incident in New York, the following happened in London.
Terroll explains what happened:
"I was on the train and overheard an argument on the train. I looked up and saw it was a white lady shouting at a young black boy sitting down. “Move u never paid for two seats” then went on to pushing him and shouting abuse. I started to see the boy getting angry so I took my stuff from the other side of the carriage and moved to where he was and sat down next to him. This women started to shout amuse at me now and started to say the few hundreds pounds I had in my hand was “DRUG MONEY” ?? I asked her why would u say that? She replied “probably is…” smh. Instagram I’m only posting this because so many of our young kings get into situations like this where people expect them to act out of character. NOT TODAY."Terroll then records the women leaving the train and the train coming to a stop. An announcement comes over the loudspeaker.
That’s right, both Terroll and the young man he was coming to the defense of were being arrested for sexual harassment. Despite the fact that the woman not only verbally but physically abused both the unnamed young man and Terroll, she lied to the train staff saying they assaulted her when this was clearly not the case.
Terroll and the young man were detained but later released. Terroll, in a later video, makes an excellent point. “Thank God I recorded it.” Because he, being a Black man and the “youth” that was with him also being a Black male, there is a global assumption of guilt, especially when it comes to White Women. Odds are, had they not, had there not been surveillance in that New York bodega, it would have been those Black Males’ word against those White Women. And as we see from Emmitt Till and other unnamed examples in history, 9 times out of 10, society believes the White Woman.
We don’t have to go too far back in history to see this. Nikki Yovino of Long Island, N.Y. in February of 2017, told police that she had been raped by two Black Sacred Heart University football players. Nikki said she attended an off-campus party in October of 2016, in Bridgeport, Conn., where the two men pulled her into a basement bathroom and took turns raping her. Both of these young men denied Nikki’s accusation, claiming the sex was consensual.
Police conducted a full investigation. The accusation resulted in the men losing their scholarships and their hopes to play pro ball.
Yovino admitted months later that she made the entire story up in an attempt to get sympathy from a young man she was hoping to date.
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of Nikki’s lie, the two young men who were accused were forced to leave Sacred Heart University following losing their scholarships.
Justice was served, right? Not exactly. Because of a plea deal, Nikki avoided more serious charges. Adding insult to injury, during her sentencing hearing Thursday, Nikki was seen rolling her eyes as one of her victims, Malik St. Hilaire, read a statement detailing the impact her false accusation still continues to have on his life.
“I went from being a college student to sitting at home being expelled, with no way to clear my name. I just hope she knows what she has done to me. My life will never be the same. I did nothing wrong, but everything has been altered because of this.” Malik said.
Apparently, Nikki feels no remorse for any of that.
There are countless stories where White Women leverage their Whiteness and femininity against Black Males for their own gain or benefit. Heard of the Scottsboro boys? What about Rosewood? This isn’t anything new.
Meanwhile, there are real assaults and actual rape actually occurring in epidemic numbers. 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men will be raped in their lifetimes, all while rape is still the most under-reported crime with 63% of sexual assaults never reported to the police.
There are real victims of these real crimes shouting out for someone to believe them. They deserved to be heard and believed. But they are not, yes in part due to patriarchy, but also because of these types of women who flat out lie.
It makes you wonder, who is the real danger; at this point, I would say the Patricias, Nikkis, Teresas, Carolyns, and Amys.
Comments
Post a Comment