PRIVILEGE

"Supreme Court Justice Scalia said, "United States policy is revolved around conquest... So, Indian nations are conquered nations, and the treaties have been upheld!" on August 9, 2009.

There is opulence, and laissez-faire within the subtle makeup of white American women taken for granted by their privilege. There is boldness earned within them, defiance, and a confidence that is sexy, intimidating, or annoying. The differences between Black and White women in the United States are close to their similarities. But in very conservative Arabian cultures what have kept White Western female journalists from getting killed have been the reputation of the United States, and the protected image of the white woman in movies, and literature. Bullying has a limiting affect on people. Eventually, the bullied find ways to fight back after studying the bully until his weaknesses become obvious. Herein lies my deep grief: the gang rape of journalist Lara Logan in Egypt.


I cringe every time I see her and the other 'ballsy' Western women interviewing men in dangerous countries populated by brown and black skinned men governed by a patriarchy, and raised by women subjugated by their traditions, their men, religion and governments. We all witness it. They feign humility in Arab countries until they can’t, and soon shed it, and announce their independence from conservative attitudes, and behavior in subtle and obvious ways. It isn’t long before they are gesticulating in a masculine manner in men’s faces on the street, or within the halls of power making their point as journalists, and as women saying, in affect, ‘I am Woman hear me roar!’


The Western sense of freedom can be intrusive to a person, or people who have restrictions to their movement, their sexuality, their voice, and self-expression. When an educated professional woman unconsciously, or purposely imposes her sense of right and wrong upon very conservative and angry Egyptian men during and after they have rebelled against their leader no rules exist for the time being, and like freed feral animals men begin looking for prey. Anything that oppressed them, on any level, is the target of released rage, and the nerve, and assumptions of a woman like Lara Logan, which have became offensive, is fodder for rage, and justifies, in their minds, brutality. It was inevitable. Not the brutal gang rape, but the released rage. How it was going to happen could only be predicted if one was in the crowd near enough to take the pulse of the mob.


It took one day of timid, shocked, frightened reporting of Lara Logan’s beating, rape, rescue, and return home before her life was shut away from public view, and fellow journalists turned to other subjects. Left in a cold metallic coffin in our public consciousness Lara Logan’s body, revered status, rape, and her state of mind was spoken of, pitifully, as a condition, a persistent headache. Did she have a cold, the flu? The President called her, but really, what could he do? There are things we can do. We can ask questions of ourselves in the open forum of television, but we won’t. We don’t. Why is that?


The first news report I heard in Washington DC informed us that beatings, and rapes of male, and female journalists were suffered in silence as a price of the job. There are over 144 reported cases worldwide. Rape is such a reflex. It is a reaction to certain conditions, and a reaction to change in some social structures. It is a tactic of war, and its ability to conquer, and subjugate is notorious in prisons, war torn countrysides, and towns the world over, and in homes. What within us needs to die, or be killed to corral the rage that justifies, and orchestrates rape first in the spirit, the mind, and the consciousness of a gender?


The tools are there. Jesus is there. They are not hidden. The rituals, and the teachers are alive, trained, and available. The access to the realms of magic, power, and the sacred beings who live to devour the Devourer are open. Who is of the right mind to do this work? ©Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

photo: actress Kim Cattrall