People don't ever seem to realize that doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.

The area’s historical and contemporary racism might have made the local NAACP feel compelled to take the stance it did, says Lester Spence, an Africana studies and political science professor at Johns Hopkins. This is not the first time the NAACP has advocated for black men accused of sex crimes. The organization came under fire in 2008 for rallying around a group of black teens who gang raped a black woman and forced her to have sex with her 12-year-old son at the Dunbar Village Apartment Complex in South Florida. The NAACP held a rally supporting the accused that included fliers labeling the men “victims.” They were later convicted, and the main assailant received eight life sentences. The state NAACP issued an apology, but the national NAACP stood by its original stance.

There’s a difference between Silsbee and Dunbar Village, however, points out lawyer-turned-blogger Gina McCauley, who led the black feminist critique of the NAACP’s Dunbar Village stance:

[Hillarie], a young White woman, has infrastructure in place to advocate on her behalf, but the majority of the time when the NAACP is running around coddling and defending violent predators, the victims are Black women and girls who don’t have such support.

So on football Sunday I’m in a crappy mood. Its nothing personal just that ladies time and I’m trying to control my own anger as far as my emotions during that time. So I decide to get on the internet and do some researching and blogging just to get some things off my mind I guess.


I come across an article of this high school girl who was raped by a football player. While she was being raped, there were 2 witnesses outside who heard the girl say no and heard what was going on outside of that locked door. So to get the point of things when the case goes to trial the football player and the other young man involved in the rape plead to a lesser charge. They ignored what the witnesses had heard and never took that into account when it came to the victims testimony. She was put into a position to where either she had to cheer for the boy who raped her or get kicked off the cheerleading squad. The whole town had been harassing her and still does to this day.


Now what is with the victim blaming? When is it ever ok to rape a woman? Is it ok to rape a woman because she’s drunk? Is it ok to rape a woman because she’s showing skin? Is it ok to rape a woman because she flirted with you? Is it ok to rape a woman because she agreed to fool around with you but when it comes down to actually having sexual intercourse with you she said no? is it ok to gang rape a 11 year old girl because she “dresses” like she’s 20? Is it ok to rape a mother and then force her to have sex with her 12 year old son? All I want to know is when is it ok?


The funny thing about this is the NAACP. Every single time a black man is accused of rape they come out like flies on a pile of shit. So eager to defend his rights, claiming that they should have the same rights as white men. Now I’m not saying that black men should not have the same rights my problem is you are defending a man who gang raped a mother and forced her to have sex with her son and your issue is not that he did it, that he couldn’t get out on bail……am I the only one who sees a problem with this? I don’t see them flocking out to protect the rights of rape victims no but they will stand up for the black man.


Again with the victim blaming, this has gotten to the point where men accused of rape are now the victims and women turn into being the ones who turned them on/lead them on/knew what they were doing.
Rape(Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence) is the only crime where there is an “Alleged Victim.” You hear it constantly all the time on the news, all you have to do is turn the channel. It is the only crime where the victims behavior is being determined on weather or not the crime actually took place. I’ve said this a million times before, if you get robbed the police don’t come up to you and blame you for having money in your pockets at the time you were robbed. They don’t ask you why you were wearing your diamond necklace or why you had on $300 shoes. Yes they might comment on it but that’s as far as it goes and they move on with the case. No one blames them for having MATERIALISTIC VALUEABLES taken away from them. When a woman is raped, What was she wearing? Was she drinking? Why was she out alone? What was she doing in that neighborhood? Why didn’t she scream for help? Why didn’t she fight back? Did she lead him on? Why did she let him into her house?
People put more empathy when materialistic items are stolen then when a woman’s body is stolen from her. Why does money have a higher value then a woman’s body? Why do materialistic items have more value over a woman’s body? Doesn’t that pissed anyone else off other than me?


We need to stop protecting the perpetrators and helping the victims. Blaming the victims for what was DONE TO THEM doesn’t solve the problem, it only enables them to keep doing it over and over again. Seriously what does protecting them do? Do you knot want other people to know what’s going on behind close doors? Because rape happens its nothing to be ashamed of, the shame comes from those people who like to sweep it under the rug to try and cover it up, to keep a good name clean.

Al Sharpton and the NAACP with the Dunbar Village Rape

WEST PALM BEACH - Speaking outside the State Attorney's Office on Tuesday, the Rev. Al Sharpton decried what he said was unequal treatment of the young defendants charged in the Dunbar Village attack and the teens recently arrested on charges of a rape west of Boca Raton.


Backed by relatives of the defendants accused in last year's rape of a Dunbar Village resident, Sharpton said any act of violence against a woman is inexcusable, but he is seeking fairness, considering that the teens charged in a New Year's Day assault west of Boca Raton are free on bail.


"You cannot have one set of rules for acts that are wrong and horrific in Boca and another set in Dunbar Village," said Sharpton, a civil rights activist and president of the New York-based National Action Network. "You must have equal protection under the law."


Avion Lawson, 14; Nathan Walker, 17; Tommy Poindexter, 18; and Jakaris Taylor, 16, all were charged as adults with multiple felonies connected to the attack, in which police say the victim was repeatedly assaulted. Taylor has reached an agreement that would send him to prison for 20 years after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual battery and one count of burglary.



All four teens remain in the Palm Beach County Jail with bail denied, while five teens charged as adults with sexual battery on a physically incapacitated person and lewd and lascivious battery in the New Year's Day case all have posted bond as they await trial. Sharpton said the teens in that case had not been charged as adults; all but a 13-year-old were.



William Long, 18; Alex Perriello, 16; Eduardo Otaegui, 17; Ryan Lafferty, 14; and Blake Carter, 14, are accused of assaulting two middle school students along a canal bank after a night of drinking west of Boca Raton.


In that case, the consumption of alcohol by the teens, including the alleged victims, appears to have been a factor in the assault, according to court documents. The girls ended up in a hospital and one of them is reported to have told one of the boys she wanted to have sex with him, according to court documents. Three of the teen boys admitted to investigators they engaged in sex acts with the girls, one of whom was found by a deputy unconscious and half-naked.



In the Dunbar Village case, the victim was beaten, forced into a sex act with her son at gunpoint and ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water, where household cleaners were poured on her, police said.


Maude Ford Lee, president of the West Palm Beach chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she hoped Sharpton's presence would help expose the "injustice."


"We're quite concerned it seems there is a different kind of action that takes place with black kids and white kids," Lee said. "We are not condoning the crimes that these kids supposedly committed but we want equal treatment under the law for them."



Michael Edmondson, spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, said the allegations levied at Tuesday's news conference do not deserve a response.


Cathy Lawson, Avion Lawson's mother, said she is still hurting about the fact her son is charged as an adult."I'm not saying they shouldn't be charged, but I don't feel that they should be charged as adults," she said. "Because they don't have the mind of an adult."



Avion Lawson is "not doing good" in jail and is allowed out of his cell one hour every other day, she said."How would you be doing if you were a 14-year-old locked up in a room?" she asked.Walker's mother, Ruby Walker, also attended the news conference and complained about the treatment her son and his co-defendants have received."We don't like what's going on. It's not right," she said. "I don't think we should have to suffer."



Sharpton also said he plans to follow through on a promise to spend the night at Dunbar Village. He repeatedly expressed his concern about the lack of bail for the Dunbar defendants."In this situation, it is the imbalance that we are protesting. We are not condoning the acts on either side," Sharpton said.


"While we admonish young men in every community to not engage in crime and to respect women, we also admonish the system that you can't have one level of justice for whites and those with money and another level for blacks that live in Dunbar Village."Nancy Othón can be reached at nothon@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5502.