Black Women and Class

By now most of us have seen the TV coverage of the former police officer convicted of serial rape of 13 black women. Melissa Harris-Perry pointed out that our media did not cover the arrest, the prosecution, defense or the trial itself. We heard about unarmed black men being shot in the street, but abused black women got no coverage. That's apparently an old problem. How many American men understand that slavery made possible an unending rape of black women? One former police officer figured it out. He selected, as his victims, black women who had been discarded by structured society: drug users, prostitutes, women with records. He eventually made the mistake of attacking a middle class woman, and now he's doing life.