OUR BLACK SONS MATTER, But is The Black Caucus Listening to Mothers of Accused Black Sons?
“In the campus context we have seen over a thousand accused students mostly devastated, despondent and some suicidal. The majority admit to having considered suicide and a few have been successful.” Said Cynthia Garrett Co-President of FACE, or Families Advocating for Campus Equality – a group that fights for those wrongly accused of rape and sexual assault on college campuses. Garrett shared her conversation with a black mother, “I found it both interesting, eye opening, and very sad that regarding her son’s false accusation, a black mother told me ‘It’s just more of the same for us.’… “I also was alarmed that the black caucus in Congress refused to get involved with the railroading of black and other minority students on campus, because they are aligned with the women’s movement. These issues are not mutually exclusive,” Garrett said. “What I see happening in the U.S today is the abandonment of men and men’s issues in general and black men and minorities in particular. Garrett is not alone with this view.
Lara Bazelon, a feminist law professor started a pro bono legal clinic for assisting low-income minority male students at California colleges who face expulsion over Title IX rape charges. Unbelievalbly, Bazelon is receiving threats for doing this…Citing recent California court decisions against UC-Santa Barbara and the University of Southern California, Bazelon said that defending due process “shouldn’t be a radical or controversial position.” The law professor called out the American Civil Liberties Union, which is supposed to be defending the rights of disadvantaged people, but “when it comes to these cases, they don’t.” “We are standing up for the Constitution and making sure that these court decisions are being enforced,” she said.
“It’s no wonder that the accused suffer greatly, as is obvious from their loss of not just their educations and careers, but they often become isolated from friends and sometimes family as well. ” Cynthia Garrett, co-President of FACE.
