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Backlash over movie costar about past rape allegations

by Robert Randle
09/19/16
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In the September 3, 2016 edition of the Tacoma News Tribune, there was an article from WA Post reporter Caitlin Gibson about the controversy in the aftermath of making the movie, “Birth of a Nation.” Gabrielle Union wrote a blistering editorial after she learned of her co-star Nate Parker’s rape trial seventeen years ago. Nate was acquitted of all charges and his female accuser eventually committed suicide four years ago. This situation hit a nerve for Ms. Union, who was a rape victim herself twenty-four years ago when she was forced into the back stockroom at a Payless Shoe Store. Because of her experience and doubtless sensitivity to the issue, Gabrielle wants to spark, as she sees it, a national conversation about misogyny, hyper-masculinity and the embodiment a rape culture that is in overdrive in American society. The center point of her argument rests on what constitutes “consent.” This is a good point in which to begin this discussion because it might seem so clear from a moral or gender standpoint, but maybe a bit murkier or less well defined as a matter of law.

Let’s be clear from the onset, and I will say this without fear of equivocation or disagreement, “rape is not a sexual act.” It is perhaps the ultimate power trip in which sexual means are fueled by violence and brutality to humiliate and degrade another human being [female in this case]- relegating them to the level of a non-person with no sense of value or self-worth. I have even heard a woman refer to the act or experience of it leaving an empty space in your soul; and that may very well be literally true. Any man that would do such a thing, leave such a permanent scarring of someone’s being is not fit to called ‘human’ but rather some ravenous, vicious animal hunting for some defenseless prey; but I digress. Now, returning back to this notion of giving ‘consent,’ does it have to be explicit or implicit? What about extenuating circumstances such as does the consumption of alcohol or drugs lead to impairment or disability where one is not truly aware of the consequences of participation in acts of a sexual nature, and consent in not given a conscious, voluntary act but rather, it is coerced in some manner?

One of the arguments that Nate Parker used in his rape trial is that the victim didn’t say, “No” [or stop]. I suppose his attorney was trying to use her silence as “implied consent” which would not make it ‘rape’ technically speaking. The thing is, though, a non-verbal “no” does not automatically imply “yes” either. Also, just because a woman comes to a man’s room at 2 o’clock in the morning or agrees to meet with him alone in his dorm room that she is, as the colloquial expression, “asking for it.”Another point to consider is whether prior consensual sexual contact (intercourse) with one’s accuser prejudices a rape conviction in the present circumstance. I think Gabrielle Union as well as other victims of rape or sexual assault should join forces and try to get this issue on the front burner, but I am not so optimistic that it will become much of a priority in the bastions of male-dominated power systems. Unfortunately, gender-bias is America’s dirty little secret that no one wants to seriously talk about, so it is conveniently swept under the rug.

I don’t know what the answer is or who should begin the conversation, or where it should start. On this matter, First Lady Michelle Obama or Miss ‘O’ might have some ideas. In the meantime it is an uphill battle for women to get some justice, or like in the movie, Magnificent Seven, the gunslinger portrayed by Denzel Washington asks the lady who hired him if she wanted revenge-she said she wanted righteousness but she would settle for revenge [instead]. Just ask Gretchen Carlson about that one; ok, I digress again.  But this does go to a deeper social issue that is more than oversexed men but how women are “commodified” as sexual objects or things for a man’s enjoyment or pleasure and when he is finished, she is tossed away like a thing discarded and disposable. Even within the marriage some women are nothing more than “Stepford wives” and talk about bizarre- I remember a case that went to trial many years ago, I think it might have occurred in that state of Oregon, but at any rate it went something like this: A wife sued her husband for rape but the judge ruled that a husband cannot be criminally liable for rape because she cannot refuse conjugal obligation rights to her husband. Of course the judge was a man, but since “rape” is not a sexual act in the strictest sense, the wife should have sued for domestic battery of aggravated assault with sexual motivations.

As with bringing any suit before the Court, as the Plaintiff the burden rests with such a person to prove with the introduction of evidence that convinces the trier-of-fact (judge and/or jury) that what you claim satisfies the requirements of the law for a guilty verdict, conviction, and incarceration and other criminal penalty or sanction. I just had this thought about all the women coming out of the woodwork accusing Bill Cosby of rape, most nearly forty years later. I wonder what would have happened if the first one or two victims would not have remained silent because their inaction allowed a serial sexual offender (predator) to victimize other women. Yes, this is a conversation that should be happening but when you make that call who is going to be on the other end of the line, and will they be willing to listen?

Robert Randle
776 Commerce St #701
Tacoma, WA 98402
September 17, 2016
[email protected]