Friday, August 1, 2008

Sexual Assault in the Military Only Happens To White Women?

There's an article on CNN's front page today about sexual assault in the military - 41% of all women in the military report sexual assault. If you've been keeping up with some of the larger feminist/progressive blogs, you're probably familiar with the statistics and information already.

Sadly, it's not surprising the picture they have representing the victims is a white woman. I don't mean to trivialize or marginalize the brutality of her rape and subsequent murder, just that often times when something happens to women of color, it goes unnoticed. When the same thing happens to a white woman, law enforcement takes it seriously and kicks into high gear. See: Lacee Peterson, Natalee Hollaway, etc. What about Camille Johnson or Jasmine Kasner? Those are just the first two names I grabbed off of Black and Missing.

If you haven't heard about Pfc. LaVena Johnson, you should have. From their site:

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena's death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier's family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died - two loose front teeth, a "busted lip" that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home - suggesting that "someone might have punched her in the mouth."

Her family is trying to get some answers to her death, but they've been virtually ignored. Where's the CNN page for that? When the statistic says that 41% of women in the military report sexual assault (29% report rape), that means ALL women, not just white ones.

2 comments:

lindsay said...

Hey now, the House apologized for slavery this week... doesn't that mean everything's cool?

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hello there!

Thank you for mentioning that!

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa

__________________________________

@ Lindsay

It will be cool when we don't have black men being electrocuted who are unarmed by police officers who are not fired....

It will be cool when this country begins to speak openly about white supremacist, patriarchy and the implications that its reinforcement has on non-whites in this nation...

It will be cool when we don't have to ask a question about whether race relations are ALL SOLVED when hatred is blatant all throughout this country...

Remember when Daily Kos published a "satire" magazine cover of Michelle Obama tied by the hands and hung on a tree with hooded men around her holding a branding iron...oh that was just a knee-slapping great joke...

Remember the black man who was tied to the back of a truck by white men in Texas and dragged down a dirt road until his head was separated from his body?

No...everything is not cool now with a shallow and insincere apology that changed NOTHING in the racial landscape.

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa