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Attorney, activist and blogger Gina McCauley, and the readers of What About Our Daughters, are determined not to let the world forget about the rape and torture of a mother and her son that took place almost two years ago in a Florida public housing project called Dunbar Village. In a fresh move, the readers of What About Our Daughters chipped in to hire a veteran journalist to cover the trial of two Dunbar Village assailants who were convicted on rape and assault charges Friday. I asked McCauley if this collaborated effort is the future of journalism:
This isn't the future; this is the past. Black folks have been producing their own news for centuries. We're not making a breakthrough, we're headed back to the past where men and women of conscience who were passionate about something banded together to produce their own media. Source: Gina McCauley Interview
Remember the old abolitionist papers? Freedom's Journal, Provincial Freeman, The Colored American, The North Star, The Christian Recorder, The National Era, and The Liberator? We're taking it back to the days of Ida B. Wells, where we produce news because we believe people's very lives depend on it. We're taking it back to the days when you had individual journalists doing shoe leather reporting about things people were passionate about instead of being guided by the dictates of cosseted editors.
Is it the wave of the future? I think so as far as my readers are concerned. The entire life of my blog has been peppered with examples of what my readers can accomplish when we work together. This is a prime example. We've been complaining for years about a lack of coverage of crimes against black women and girls. This time, I asked my readers to step up to the plate, and they have. Source: Gina McCauley
Like many Americans, I've found myself in solidarity with the victims of the Sudan's Janjaweed militias and Congo's brutal militias. War crimes committed against civilians grab global headlines and move us to sign petitions, walk in protest demonstrations and make donations. But I believe that the problem of brutal violence, often rampant in our inner cities, is an urgent threat to our nation's well-being and deserves the same kind of consistent media attention and mass action.
Too often these stomach-churning assaults, which frequently victimize black women and children, are given cursory attention by a fickle media and a jaded public.
McCauley and the readers of What About Our Daughters remind us that as members of a free society, we have the power and responsibility to take action on the issues that matter to us most.
Comments: (7)
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By: sharonnewlife on 9/01/2009 12:24PM
Don't let this story die. Pray for the black mother and son and contribute to them any way you can. Call, write and remind Sharpton and the NAACP that all is not forgotten.
Open Letter to the NAACP and Al Sharpton
Published by Aaron + Alaine on March 15, 2008 at 4:06 PM
I sent the following to NAN and the NAACP at 4:04 pm Saturday March 15, 2008. I encourage you to do the same and more.To:
Al Sharpton - National Action Network
Julian Bond - Chairman - NAACP
Maude Ford Lee - President - West Palm Beach Branch NAACP
Sabu Williams - Director - Florida State Conference NAACP
I'm writing to protest the recent actions of the NAACP and the National Action Network in the Dunbar Village rape case. As you know, on June 18th, 2007, a black woman and her 12 year old son were viciously and savagely attacked by 10 black men and boys in a West Palm Beach Florida public housing project called Dunbar Village . The woman was brutally gang raped for over three hours, tortured and forced to perform oral sex on her 12 year old son at gunpoint. They were doused with chemicals, poured into their eyes and the woman's vagina in an attempt to destroy evidence. They were saved from being burned alive only because the rapists could not find matches. No one called the police during the three hour attack. No one came to their aid when the attack was over. They had to walk a mile to a hospital before they were assisted by anyone.
On Tuesday, March 11, 2008, Al Sharpton and the West Palm Beach NAACP held a press conference accusing the prosecutor of treating those arrested in this case unfairly. You demanded that the prosecutor offer bail to the boys arrested in this case and not try them as adults, because this was being done by the prosecutor in another gang rape case involving white perpetrators in a different Florida jurisdiction.
Following the attack, vigorous efforts were made to contact NAN and the NAACP and enlist your aid in getting help and attention for the victim of this horrific crime. An NAACP spokesman, when contacted, said they would not respond because "it was outside their mission". Despite repeated calls to the National Action Network, there was NO RESPONSE. No statement on behalf of the victim, no protest, not one single word. Contrast this to the swift and vocal response Al Sharpton and NAN exhibited to the Duke rape case. In the Duke case, loud and vocal support of the victim and calls for justice for her attackers, but in the Dunbar Village case.......complete silence. The difference between the two cases? At Duke - the alleged attackers were white men; in Dunbar Village, the alleged attackers are black men. Contrast the response in this case to the NAACP's vigorous defense of Michael Vick for merely killing dogs, but the brutal and horrific gang rape of a black woman in front of her 12 year old son provokes not a single word.
For almost a year, NAN and the NAACP had nothing to say in support of the black woman victim and her son. You made no calls for the West Palm Beach police to swiftly find these criminals, of whom six are still on the loose. You did nothing to my knowledge to offer help to this woman and her child to help them recover. In all points, you exhibited a complete moral indifference to the crime committed against this black woman. Now, almost a year later, you come rushing to the defense of....the rapists??!!!! Your actions send the clear message that crimes committed against black women are not important to your organizations unless they present an opportunity to protest perceived racism and if exploiting a poor, gang raped black woman can help you grab some media spotlight for that purpose, thats okay.
I ask, where is your moral compass? How is it that the vile nature of what you are doing is not apparent to you? You are championing rapists while deliberately, purposefully ignoring the vicious gang rape and torture of a black woman. Your actions make clear that neither you Al Sharpton as a black man, nor the NAACP, value the dignity, safety and well being of black women. Your actions make clear that the rape and violation of black women is okay depending on the race of the violator. You will protest the rape of black women by white men, but you will say nothing about the rape of black women by black men and in fact will defend the black rapists of african american women. It is a second violation of this woman and indeed of all black women as vile as the first.
Your behavior in this case is morally indefensible and despicable. There is no justification for it, no basis in morality that would support what Al Sharpton and the NAACP are doing. I demand that you reverse course. I demand that you turn the resources of your organization to providing support and aid to the innocent victims in this case, not the perpetrators. I demand that you publicly in word and deed put pressure on the West Palm Beach authorities to find and arrest the other six rapists still on the loose.
If you are unwilling to immediately and publicly acknowledge the error of your actions in regard to the Dunbar Village case, I and as many others as I can persuade to join me, will pursue every avenue available to make the public at large, the media, your membership, your financial and political supporters, your sponsors and the entire world aware of your willing and informed support and encouragement of the brutal rape and torture of a black woman. My outrage is shared by many others. NAN and the NAACP will be held accountable.
The actions of Al Sharpton and the NAACP to support rapists of black women is a moral abomination, a moral atrocity. It degrades and sullies the good the NAACP has accomplished. It should not be allowed to stand. It is non negotiable. If the NAACP and NAN must be ripped apart and rebuilt anew to restore its moral compass and establish as sacrosanct the dignity, value and safety of black women, that is preferable to organizations which knowingly support the violation and rape of black women.
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To our readers. If you agree with the above, make it a letter template for other people. Forward it, twit it, facebook it, newsvine it, digg it, and anything else you can think of. Turn it into a viral hurricane of outrage and accountability.
You can communicate directly to the organizations with the info below:
NAACP: Julian Bond -Chairman
4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore MD 21215
Toll Free: (877) NAACP-98
Local: (410) 580-5777
National Action Network
Al Sharpton
Crisis Department
106 W. 145th Street
Harlem, New York 10039
212-690-3070
877-NAN-HOJ1
crisis@nationalactionnetwork.net
revalmedia@yahoo.com
NAACP: Florida State Conference
DIRECTOR: MR. SABU WILLIAMS
ADDRESS: 230 Seneca Trail; Crest View, FL 32536
TELEPHONE: (850) 301-2095 FAX: (850) 301-2098
E-MAIL: sabu1@aol.com
West Palm Beach County Branch - Unit # 5143
President: Maude Ford Lee
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 4131 West Palm Beach, FL 33407
Telephone: (561) 655-9798
E-Mail: unit5143@naacp.org
This behavior should not be allowed to stand. Let's put a stop to it.
Posted by Aaron + Alaine
Labels: Al Sharpton, black women, Dunbar Village, NAACP
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By: Ernest Brown on 9/10/2009 4:04PM
oh where can i sign? thank you thank you thanks you!!!!!!!!!!
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By: God's Messenger on 9/01/2009 9:33AM
I'm aware of the story and thank you very much for covering it...these animals need to be locked up for life without parole.
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By: Shaquila on 9/01/2009 6:36PM
Looks like these boys will get a taste of their own medicine when they go to prison, there will be no mercy shown, just like they showed no mercy to this poor woman and her son.
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By: Tired of Poor ME attitude on 9/02/2009 1:05PM
Glad to finally see a critical story about a black person. these animals need to rot for what they did. Little bitches will make good prags.
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By: Jim on 9/02/2009 1:05PM
rapists deserve no mercy,,killers deserve no mercy,,let's stop giving them mercy and that as a deterent will change things,,no more crowded prisons...just make sure that you give the right offender his/her punishment and not just lock black men/women up just because...we can't just give carte blanche for lawyers, judges, cops the okay to punish to the fullest because too many blacks are incarcerated and never did the crime they were locked up for.
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By: I am baddkitty on 9/05/2009 4:03AM
The NAACP and Al Sharpton are soooo full of crap. I can not believe these people and the parents need to be put in jail also for failing so damn bad. the kid poindexter left DNA and his mom swears he couldn't have done this shyt. it's poor excuses like her that raise these punks. these kids where trouble and they are where they belong. hopefully they will stay put away. they could and would never contribute to society in a positive way. these monsters are bond for hell.
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