Speaking Truth to Power (40 page)

Brock was very adept at getting many of his reviewers to view me through the same warped prism from which he views me. They, like
Thomas’ political supporters, do not relish facing the hard question of what acceptance that Thomas was untruthful means. Would journalists have an obligation to demand his removal from the Court? Would journalists have then to consider that their own role in covering the hearing may have contributed to the likelihood of the confirmation? Unwillingness to address these questions provides incentive to believe both Clarence Thomas’ and David Brock’s dishonesty. That same history and culture make it easier to believe mine.

All of Brock’s false claims, accusations, and theories fall into a void about black women, another void about women who raise harassment claims, and still another, even larger void of misogyny. Brock’s claims made about a black woman and supported by an expert of black social behavior in the context of claims of sexual impropriety presented a perverse and incredibly burdensome obstacle for me to overcome. In the context of the hearing, false rumors about my behavior and wishes flourished. One source falsely asserted that I did not want Angela Wright to testify because I feared that her more “openly sexual” demeanor might negatively reflect on my testimony and my more reserved demeanor. One colleague from Oral Roberts University, who ascribed overtly sexual intentions to my behavior, suggested that my reserved demeanor was intended to be a sexual come-on.

Angela Wright’s reaction of denying that Thomas’ comments bothered her and even my reaction of trying to maintain a cordial relationship are ways of coping with years of these combined stereotypical definitions of our sexuality. At one point in preparing for her testimony, Wright was told to borrow a skirt because the pantsuit she was wearing was not demure enough. Perhaps Thomas relied on our vulnerability to these stereotypes when he targeted Wright, Hardnett, and me—three young, single, workplace subordinates—for this kind of attention. Certainly, consciously or not, the Republican senators and some analysts relied upon them when they attacked our charges about the behavior.

Ironically, the community gives women and girls a guide for “handling” sexual harassment. We are urged by our culture to put harassers in their place or ignore the harassment. No matter how inadequate that
guide is, it was at least available. The community chose Thomas as the black male to represent the race. Consequently, I had to be rejected. And there was no guide for handling the community shunning I received for my testimony. No one offered me a map to help me find my way back into the community.

The accusation that African American women bring down men is one that typically cuts deep to the quick of those accused of such behavior. It was a clever and calculated use of the politics of the African American community and our sensitivity to racism. The idea that I was a woman used by liberal whites and in particular feminists to bring down Clarence Thomas certainly had that very visceral effect upon community members.

The extreme to which this may be carried was tragically demonstrated in the Mike Tyson rape trial. Desiree Washington, the eighteen-year-old black beauty pageant contestant who accused Tyson of raping her in his hotel room, hit the barrier of community politics late in 1991 when she made her claim. Despite the fact that she, too, is African American, the community, led by a group of ministers, threw its support to him. In his defense, even while the facts of the incident were being discovered, they asserted that Mr. Tyson was a victim of his own success. Accordingly, in combination with racism the Indiana district attorney prosecuted him for rape because of his achievements and popularity combined with his race. To believe this, Ms. Washington must be cast as a liar or a pawn in the scheme to bring down Mike Tyson. Thus, the community declared that the potential for racial bias in the prosecution was more important than the possibility of sexual assault. More important, it played into the hands of the stereotypical portrait of African American women as untrustworthy attestants to sexual misconduct no matter who is the accused. Unfortunately, the support Ms. Washington received from feminists hurt her in the eyes of the community, fueling the community distrust of her claim. She was seen as a pawn of the criminal justice system as well as the tool of white women. Since white women are the very individuals whose claims of rape, though often
manipulated, lead to the lynching of black men, Ms. Washington by proxy became a party to Tyson’s “lynching.”

The picture of a lynching is as repugnant to the black community as any, and false rape charges have too often been the tool for advocating lynchings. Through rape some members of the white community manipulated racist fears of black sexuality. George Bush himself selected convicted rapist Willie Horton as a symbol of his tough stance on crime. And certainly, Mr. Tyson deserved the benefit of the doubt of his innocence, as does anyone accused of a criminal offense. Nevertheless, in denouncing Ms. Washington’s claim as part of a conspiracy, the community played on another set of racist notions—those about the sexuality of African American women.

Race has been a determinant in the conviction rates for all crimes. Part of the present and the history against which the African American community reacts is that blacks are more likely to be convicted of rape than are whites and that for years in the South the rape of a white woman by a black man carried with it the death penalty. What the community does not react to is the fact that historically there was no criminal penalty in the South for the rape of a black woman by any man, black or white. Moreover, studies of rape today show that the likelihood of conviction in a rape trial depends more on the race of the alleged victim of the rape than on the race of the accused. The conviction is less likely to occur if the accuser is black regardless of whether the accused is black or white. Thus, there is evidence that society has bought into the stereotype of the dishonest and untrustworthy black woman more readily than it has the stereotype of the oversexed black man.

I accept that both may have been at work in Mike Tyson’s conviction. The Tyson defense team played a dangerous card portraying him as a sexual aggressor whose behavior, no matter how bad, was part of a common knowledge Ms. Washington shared. Notwithstanding this obnoxious and offensive portrayal of Mike Tyson, many among the community leadership chose his perspective over hers. It was a predictable choice given the racial reality as they saw it—the reality of blackness as male and
moreover as the successful male athlete role model, no matter how he treats African American women.

The same approach would be echoed by Ben Chavis in his reaction to his dismissal by the board of the NAACP. Chavis was accused of settling a sex discrimination suit that had shades of harassment with $300,000 of badly needed NAACP funds. In response, many said a woman caused his demise, and shamed the African American community for political reasons. Nevertheless, whether or not Chavis ever harassed his accuser, it was Chavis who used the money of the nation’s leading civil rights organization to settle his personal claim, and ultimately it was Chavis whose behavior brought him down. In the same way it was Clarence Thomas’ own behavior which led to his public scrutiny and embarrassment.

Thomas and Chavis as a pair of black men publicly accused of sex harassment certainly represent two sides of the political coin. Chavis, whose career had been in civil rights from the 1960s era of the movement, was everything Thomas had denounced politically. Yet their responses to the accusations of sexual misconduct are strikingly similar. Chavis claimed that the accusations and his resulting dismissal as director of the NAACP were motivated by those who objected to his change in the political direction of the organization. He challenged his dismissal, which was little more than suspension with pay until the matter was adjudicated in court, and sought a federal court order for his reinstatement. Chavis claimed that he had been “lynched,” even “crucified.” He railed against those whom he did not name who would seek to let outsiders dictate whom the organization would and would not communicate with.

Thomas, the other side of the political coin, has aligned himself with what is now called the Black Conservative and New Right Conservative movements. He openly denounced those who remained in the civil rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s as individuals who do nothing but “bitch and moan” about the inequalities in the world. When confronted with the accusations of sexual harassment, Thomas, like Chavis later, categorically denied any impropriety in his behavior. Thomas defiantly
declared the proceeding a “high-tech lynching,” refusing to take on the role of society’s bogeyman, the sexually aggressive black male. Many commented that Thomas’ use of the lynching metaphor to refer to accusations brought by a black woman was ahistorical. Yet the historical image of the lynched is so powerful that it defied the ill-fitting analogy. And one need only look to recent history to discover another irony in Thomas’ defiance.

Thomas, who refused to be cast as the ominous carnal villain, was, after all, nominated by George Bush, who had taken that role to its lowest and most manipulative depths in the form of the Willie Horton political ad which used the image of the villainous black man as rapist to attack Bush’s political opponent, Michael Dukakis. When it came to exploitation of racial fears, George Bush proved that he could indeed work both sides of the street. In the first instance he could exploit the racist fears held by society and in the later he could exploit the fear in society of being labeled racist. Both efforts represented brilliant and cynical rhetorical strategies and both worked.

Moreover, Thomas declared that the accusations were constructed by persons or groups who wanted to punish him for having the temerity to pursue his political agenda. In doing so he countered the response that the brutal lynchings of black men to which he referred do not stem from charges by black women. He pointed the finger at “someone who had put [me] up to this,” perhaps “the feminists.” Commentators Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare contributed to the perspective when they asserted, with no foundation at all, that I was an instrument of white feminists—outsiders who were trying to destroy the black community.

The willingness of African American intellectuals to embrace this theory and point the finger at feminists as malevolent outsiders ignores a community history as well as a modern reality. It turns people like Senator Strom Thurmond, one of Judge Thomas’ staunchest supporters, into community heroes, and on no evidence, it turns people like Ms. Washington and me into traitors. This is a product of racism that shows how deeply perverse gender bias is as well.

If Thomas had been successful in painting such a picture, his analogy
to lynching might have made sense. Yet he named no groups or individuals who were responsible for the accusations. There were none to be named because none existed. He contrived the evidence to support his claim or acted on no evidence at all, the very thing we fear from a judge. He angrily denounced the process which called him to answer the charges, while all the time his chief supporter, John Danforth, was manipulating it behind the scenes to assist him, but declared that he would sooner die than give up his opportunity to serve on the Supreme Court. In the end when Thomas was confirmed by the narrowest of votes, he, according to the account by his friend John Danforth, felt that “God’s Will ha[d] been done.”

The irony is that Thomas’ philosophy of rejecting the use of racism as an excuse was turned on its head as he used racism to escape responsibility for his own behavior. Clearly, both Thomas and Chavis have political enemies. Anyone who chooses to pursue the kinds of careers chosen by the two will undoubtedly make political enemies in the process. Clearly, both Thomas’ and Chavis’ enemies objected to positions each had taken. Some had done so on the record, others off the record. Nevertheless, these enemies should not be used as the scapegoats for gender subordination and illegal behavior engaged in by individuals.

In my effort to reconnect with the African American community I sought a different community than the one that rejected the significance of the experience of half its population. I wanted a community that would look at gender oppression as seriously as it looked for the political enemies behind a conspiracy to bring down a good man. I was not prepared to accept the fact that I could not have such a community. Within the African American community the discussion about gender-based exclusion and subordination is long overdue. Reactions to charges of sexual impropriety such as those of Thomas and Chavis threaten to postpone discussions of the subject indefinitely. Professor Emma Coleman Jordan recognizes a “maxim of African-American participation in public commentary: Never air your dirty linen in public.” Its violation carries with it a heavy penalty—a community shunning.

I searched for others who sought the same. I found several outspoken
women who have shared their concerns about sexism in the community. Elaine Brown came very close to violating the maxim when she discussed the misogyny and gender bias prominent in the Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Billy Avery has long spoken against the abuse of black women in their home, starting her campaign against this abuse in the black church. Myrlie Evers, for years a member of the NAACP national board, later its president, has spoken to the issue and urged the organization to address sexism within it. I once engaged in a discussion of gender inequity with some local leadership in an African Canadian community. The discussion was enlightening, lively, and compelling but drenched in pain. Example followed example. Earnest attempts to understand followed pained recollection. The Canadians made most of the contributions; I sat listening and intrigued. At the end one woman in the group told me that this was the first time that they had an open forum to discuss their feelings with the men in their community. They announced it as if they were describing breathing air into a portion of their lungs previously unused. I can only hope that the dialogue has continued.