by Dr. Boyce Watkins
I had a conversation recently with someone who told me that her son had been accused of rape. Not only had he been accused, he pleaded guilty to the crime as part of a deal with the state. I wasn’t sure if the man was guilty or not, but his mother seemed convinced that her son would never do such a thing. I hope she’s right.
According to the accused, he slept with the woman during a one night stand, and the woman accused him of sexual assault as a way to get revenge. She says that her son only took the plea deal because he was being tortured by having to stay in a jail cell with violent felons. I listened to the story patiently, but since I was not the judge, attorney, or prosecutor, my opinion really didn’t matter. The fact is that, no matter what I think or anyone else, in the eyes of society, her son is a rapist.
It doesn’t matter if he goes to church, if he has a family, if he is a medical doctor or even if he’s innocent. The state has given him a label that he will never be able to shake for the rest of his life. And for all I know, he might deserve it. I wasn’t in the bedroom when he chose to sleep with that woman.
What does matter to me, however, is the answer to this question: What if he really was telling the truth? It’s not as if we don’t know about countless black men being incarcerated for things they didn’t do, it happens all the time. I also know of a separate case where a man was falsely accused of sexual assault as a form of revenge. You may have heard of similar cases yourself. In a world of political dichotomies, we are often not allowed to discuss the nuances of male-female interaction, but we all know that not everything is as cut and dry as Melissa Harris-Perry might want you to believe. Read More
