[DEBATE] : Re: racism vs sexism, my confusion

[leoecasey at optonline.net]

> Example: I agree with him when he retorted earlier today that when a
> man is found guilty of rape it does not necessarily mean that he did it.

A point that most would concede, if they thought that the corollary -- that the fact a man is found "not guilty" of rape does not necessarily mean that he did not do it, including the instant case -- was also embraced.

In the history of the US, there certainly are cases where African-American have been falsely accused and even convicted of rape, most famously the Scottsboro Boys case. There also have been many cases where rapists -- and not just white men attacking African-American women -- have gotten off scott free. These is a convenient amnesia about how widely the celebration of rape as a 'revolutionary' act in Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice was ignored, when not actually endorsed, by the American left.

Small 't' truths can be adopted in a partial way that vitiates the larger truth.

I also think that the dilemma posed by the misogynist contributions to the list are more difficult than you allow -- continue with a libertarian 'hands off' policy, knowing that their number and their ugliness will drive away one group, especially women and feminists, or moderate/censor them, knowing that this approach may drive away a different group, more libertarian in outlook. The choice may come down to which group one wants to keep more. Neither approach is without its negative effects.