I’ve missed five months of newsletters. A lot happened and a lot didn’t happen. I was worried about my country these last months but I’m calmer now. Unfortunately, half the country feels the opposite. The only impediment I see is happening on January 6, the day Pence will declare Biden the President. If he and his fellows try anything different, it will be futile. I hope so, anyway. I feel pretty sure about it.
In my case, getting back to normal means I can get back to blogging. Have you noticed how quiet the media has been on the subject of rape and sexual assault? We all colluded in this silence – the media, the Democratic Party, and me too. I hope the Goddess will forgive me. Biden is President Elect and I’m happy he won. I hope he will figure out what to do about the Coronavirus, the broken government and America’s budding internecine war.
In the meantime, what happened in December, 2020? A few things stood out as important.
The military has been raked over the coals in the last few months. I hope they take the only sensible step possible. They’ve proved they aren’t up to the task. It’s time to let an outside agency take over rape and sexual assault in our armed services.
And, of course, it is a powerful victim who is stirring up the pot. That’s when sexual assault is taken seriously. You’ll see what I mean in the second half of this post.
The subject of rape and sexual assault will be taken seriously if the woman is of quality meaning if she is rich, famous, or has political connections. A case in the news today is the sexual assault of Andrea Goldstein. A September, 2020 New York Times article broke the story. “According to the article, a man slammed her below the waist and told her that ‘you look like you could use a good time,’ Ms. Goldstein said in an interview. ‘He pressed his entire body against mine.'”
Secretary Robert Wilkie
She reported the incident and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie was notified. What happened next is the issue. Instead of investigating the incident, Wilkie investigated the victim, checking into Goldstein’s past to see if she had made any other allegations. In addition, he wrote her boss, Congressman Mark Takano, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, that “the unsubstantiated claims raised by you and your staff could deter our Veterans from seeking the care they need and deserve.” I paraphrase the word, unsubstantiated to mean unbelievable and that seems to be how others are taking it. This has turned into a huge brouhaha. Andrea Goldstein was trained by the US Navy to be a leader among men and women. She’s not going to accept this and she has lots of support. A number of powerful people and agencies have come forward to support her. She is not alone. This is important as it will set a standard in the future on how sexual assaults are handled by the VA.
This is the sort of thing I have a little trouble with. What happened to Andrea Goldstein doesn’t come up to the level of rape and murder but it does make life difficult. It troubles the soul especially when everyone laughs and no one treats it seriously. My daughter says I never learned the concept of boundaries, that mine have been crossed so many times I’ve become desensitized. I want to stop rape and other violence to women but often when I encounter the term sexual assault it is something else. What happened to Andrea Goldstein is like that. Maybe it’s because I never made it to a position in life anywhere near as important as hers.
I found life pretty rough out there in the working world. If something like Goldstein described had happened to me, I would have been shaken. I’d have gone through a lot of self-questioning. My thought processes would have gone something like this.
OMG what a creep. Where did he come from? Who is he? Is he somebody important? Did anyone see it happen? That woman saw it. I’ll ask her. Miss, did you see what that man did to me? (There is no doubt in my mind that she saw it.) “See what? I didn’t see anything,” she would say.
There would have been denial from witnesses. Were there witnesses to the Andrea Goldstein incident? I presume not or it would have been mentioned. If, back twenty, thirty or forty years ago, back when I was trying to support my family, I’d have probably vowed to myself never to wear the blouse again. I’d have worried that my bra might be visible through it. I’d have wondered why he picked me. Did I look vulnerable to him? Did I look like the kind of woman who would want that sort of thing? Did I look cheap? And I wouldn’t have reported it. I may have told my husband. He’d have said that that sort of thing doesn’t happen, that I imagined it. I learned not to bother telling him. He thought everything was my fault. He’d have said I was cheating. He’d have said, “Why did you let him do it to you? Don’t you have any pride?”
Okay, so this incident for me is a cause for a minor celebration. Look how far we have come? First of all, when Ms. Goldstein reported it, she was believed. Do you know how super wonderful it is to be believed? The second wonderful thing is that people seem to be of the opinion that it is wrong. Yay! That makes me very happy. The third great thing is that when the big guy, the CEO, the Director, the big cheese, or in this case the VA Secretary, investigated the complainant’s history, everybody thought it was wrong. They are indignant. Twenty or thirty years ago that wouldn’t have happened. We’ve made progress. At least for certain women we’ve made progress.
And I’m afraid it still very much matters who does what to whom and this next story is a case in point.
Samuel Little’s mugshots through the years.
Samuel Little died on December 30, 2020 and BBC did an article about him. That’s how I first heard his name. Who is he, you may ask? Never heard of the guy, you say. Heard of Bill Cosby. Heard of Epstein. Heard of Weinstein. But, nope, don’t think I’ve ever heard of Samuel Little. Who is he?
Samuel Little is a serial murderer. According to an FBI website,
“Little has confessed to 93 murders, and FBI crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible. Law enforcement has been able to verify 50 confessions, with many more pending final confirmation.”
Jack the Ripper only killed 5 women and he’s a legend. His namesake, the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, who also died recently, murdered 13 women. There will be a Netflix documentary soon. But Samuel Little killed 93 women.
Repeat. Samuel Little killed 93 women.
Little’s modus operandi was to punch them so they wouldn’t fight then strangle them. Police found their bodies all right, scattered about in the bad parts of town or in the boonies somewhere but they didn’t investigate. Little was homeless and mostly worked out of his car. Police categorized the women as prostitutes or druggies. Maybe they were and maybe they weren’t but on one thing you can be sure. They were almost all African American females. And that little detail is why I believe they were discarded into what must be one gigantic Jane Doe file.
Who is most likely to be beaten up, raped and murdered in America? If you don’t know already, you can figure it out by reading about Samuel Little.
When I look at what happened to Andrea Goldstein and compare it to what happened to some unknown black woman killed by Samuel Little, it becomes apparent that there is an immeasurable difference in the enormity of the crime committed. I’m not ungrateful that Andrea Goldstein is getting a lot of attention. Because of who she is, she may make a difference in how sexual assaults are handled at the VA. Unfortunately, I don’t think poor, disadvantaged black women are going to stop being murdered, raped and beaten. I don’t want to defund the police. That won’t help. I do want massive change to occur not only with the police but with our justice system in general. I shy away from black issues usually because I feel there are black writers out there who put me to shame. But maybe I shouldn’t look at it that way. There may be people who will read what I have to say but not what a person of color has to say. We have different audiences and if I get it wrong, someone will probably correct me. I’m amenable to being corrected.
I think what happened to Andrea Goldstein might be better termed offense. What happened was a sexual offense. To my mind the word assault involves violence. That’s another issue though and not the big one. I want the world to start getting excited about women who are not in either the political or entertainment arena. The worst hit segment of the female population is the black female. Little’s victims were seen as prostitutes or a drug addicts by police when they found the women’s bodies. It wasn’t until Little’s confessions and the drawings of his victims [Yeah, he made drawings. Check the FBI website.] that the FBI began to investigate these deaths. When the authorities found a dead woman’s body without visible scarring, they didn’t look any further. They filed it away. Case closed. How many families around the country are missing someone. Black women, even if they are prostitutes, aren’t flotsam. They’re humans and we owe it to them to at least find out who they were. If you want to listen to Little’s confessions, they are on youtube.com. I couldn’t handle it. He had no feelings whatsoever. There was no remorse. He enjoyed himself and, like a lot of psychopaths, he was kind of charming. It’s so weird! It gives me goosebumps.