"no MEANS no"

Today we watched a video in class and we learned about the common misconceptions mostly associated with rape.  Here are a few of them:

• Women ask for rape.
• this is another excuse to blame the rape on the woman.  Provocative clothing, flirting, even engaging in sexual touching and kissing are all claims to why women "ask for rape"
• Most women lie about rape.
• this is quite the contrary, as a matter of fact according to an FBI statistic only about 2% of rape accusations are falsified.
• Most rape victims don't report their rape at all for fear of being scrutinized and mis judged.
•  Most rapists are strangers.
• Not true!! In fact most rape occurs  between people who know each other.
• Most rapes occur between black men and white women.
• Again, quite the contrary! Most men rape women from the same race, background, and soci-econmic status.  Ex: white rapes white, black rapes black, Asian rapes Asian, however, there are instances of interracial rapes occurring.   
• Black women who accuse black men of rape are traitor of their own race.
• Even though this is a belief amongst some black communities it couldn't be far from the truth.  
• The coping mechanism with rape is to tell someone.
• If the woman does not tell that she was raped she allows others to become victimized by her assailant.  

This last misconception leads me to the other topic of conversation for class today.  We discussed the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas case, in which Hill accused Thomas of saying sexually lewd and inappropriate comments to her.  She was deemed a traitor of her race.  They felt how could she possibly destroy the chances of this black man becoming the second African American Supreme Court Justice.  You know,this whole situation really pissed me off.  How could they mistreat her so badly for Thomas just off the basis of him being white.  Had they done their research they would have known he was nothing like the liberal Thurgood Marshall.  He was basically against everything that the black population at the time was fighting for.  He was even against Affirmative Action, which helped him get  his foot in the door.  Oh,  and I was just appalled at his wife calling Anita Hill to ask for an apology, how dare she!  She had no right, especially when he wasn't even married to her when the incident took place!!!!