Comments on: Was Genarlow Wilson Guilty After All?

By: Who’s Really a Sex Offender? « PostBourgie

Who’s Really a Sex Offender? « PostBourgie — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:55:14 +0000

[...] trivializing the untold numbers of molestation and sexual abuse out there, it seems like the letter of the law in instances like this could be used to prosecute almost any [...]

By: Mika Muyo

Mika Muyo — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:52:03 +0000

wow

By: Aisha

Aisha — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:12:41 +0000

I cosign Lee. It also bothers me how there is public outcry when black folks are wronged by the legal system. We had an outcry about Justin and Janet. I’m trying to figure out when black folks are going to lend their voices to more everyday causes. We can go to Jena but we can’t go to the local school board meeting.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:27:03 +0000

This case always made me uneasy. I want more details of what happened concerning the 17 year old. There are holes in our information as per what Steve mentioned above. Did she testify? I also want to know if she was black. My feeling is that black women exist at the worst possible intersection of gender and race. I really hope that whatever happened to those girls what not brushed under the rug for the sake of preventing what was perceived as an excessive racially motivated sentencing. There certainly is systematic racism in the judicial system. I’m not arguing that. But I find myself feeling the way I did when I read some people’s reaction to the Anita Hill/ Clarence Thomas case. There were sentiments expressed by some black people that she shouldn’t have given one of “us” up to “them”, no matter what his transgressions were. I hate the idea of having to choose between my rights as female and my rights as black. I hope that this *isn’t* what happened but if it was, sadly I can’t say I’d be too surprised. So far as I can see, being black and female is the bottom rung in every socioeconomic/racial/political discourse.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:20:58 +0000

G, I’m rusty on the facts… but really why else would the DA have wanted the maximum sentence on such a minor violation? I know that alot of the articles/exposes focus on the DA as well… and how he was determined to make an example out of Wilson and disregard the unfairness of the sentence. All of that can be construed as having racial undertones especially in a small Georgia town.

By: G.D.

G.D. — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:17:44 +0000

Steve:

‘racial motivation’? I don’t know if I can ride with that in this case. The statutory rape sentence was excessive — at the time, Georgia law would have allowed Wilson to be charged with a misdemeanor had he actually had intercourse with her instead of receiving oral sex from her — and it was right that they tightened up that inconsistency later.

But I’m not sure how his sentence was racially motivated.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:08:48 +0000

Yea..I know atleast SOME of them were white..I remember reading the articles…I’m not 100% though.. and I know some were linked to politically important local people either by family or otherwise.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:02:20 +0000

A few other things:
1. Rape law varies state to state but also consent is only one element of it.
2. The video cannot purport to be the entire evidence of whether or not there was consent.
3. Did the girls testify? What other evidence was shown for or against consent? These are things we’d need to know.
4. If a jury acquits a jury acquits… there are millions of cases where we might feel someone is guilty but the jury acquits and we have to honor it.
4.The real issue in the Wilson case was not his GUILT but the fact that he was sentenced based on an outdated and unfair statutory code… enforced possibly because of racial motivation. 5. I don’t think Wilson would ever purport to be a hero, and I think the media has shown that he wasn’t an angel. However, the larger issue was a severely unjust sentence…
Basically, the man was acquitted of rape… but punished entirely too severely for a minor violation and spent more time in jail than most first-time rapists regardless.

By: G.D.

G.D. — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:00:16 +0000

Steve: The 15-year-old girl in the case was black. I don't know about the 17-year-old.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:53:44 +0000

No the girls in the Wilson case were white…

By: slb

slb — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:46:38 +0000

… I feel awfully slow, but all this time, I’ve been confusing this Genarlow Wilson thing with the Marcus Dixon case. The girls in the Wilson case were African-American, no?

The Dixon case was the one where the dude was on Oprah and was convicted of statutory rape when his white girlfriend accused him (because her father was racist).

My mind, she is blown.

By: quadmoniker

quadmoniker — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:14:49 +0000

I wish we could see the tape, or know why the jury acquitted wilson on the charge of raping the 17-year-old.

There are some on one extreme side of an argument who would say an adult woman who got drunk, had sex and later regretted it was raped, when that’s really quite debateable. At the all-women’s college I attended, I met some very extreme feminists who called heterosexual sex inherently violating, since women are penetrated. I think this does an obvious disserve to men and women by portraying women as victims without any agency in their own lives, and men as violent predators.

But, as a Southerner, I know there is another extreme to the argument; and that’s that women who get that drunk get what’s coming to them. That argument is never stated in so many words, but it is in the coded language of religious and social conservatives who blame victims and set the standards so high for rape that they excuse real, predatory behavior.

If they had said “She shouldn’t have worn such a skanky top,” or some such nonsense, the uproar would have been mighty. This sounds much more egregious. Where is the uproar?

I wish we could see the tape.