The article, J. Baker (2017) describes the misogyny towards Black and Latinx girls and families in comparison to White women. Baker writes of a time when an entire community in a Black Southeast section of Washington, D.C. was filled with chaos, frustration and anguish. Unable to get outsiders, such as news stations or city officials, to pay attention to the disturbingly high amount of Black girls missing from the community, family members of the missing girls mobilized their own search teams with the help of social media. The article cites a few studies to support the statement that White victims are over-represented on mainstream media outlets and broadcast news, yet minorities are represented stereotypically and make the situation appear more controversial than it actually is. Baker also goes into describing the term misogynoir, which portrays the oppression that Black girls and women face in a modern day language for people to use outside of the professional world.
J. Baker (2017) also spoke on the forced assimilation of Black girls in the school systems. A number of school’s all around the country have bans against certain cultural hairstyles in the Black community. These bans include hairstyles such as cornrows, dreadlocks, twists, Afro puffs, and braids. These school systems have even gone as far as to say that a student’s use of coconut oil moisturizer was considered distracting. These mistreatments are not only limited to the hairstyles of innocent Black young girls in the school system, Black girls in the limelight have been under scrutiny as well. To name a few, Blue Ivy, the daughter of singer Beyoncé and Jay-Z was talked about harshly because of her facial features and the texture of her hair. Even young Black Olympian young girls have faced society’s harsh comments, such as Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles for their muscular physique, despite the fact that they are young gymnasts so talented that they were able to win gold medals at the Olympics.
Black girls are faced with anti – Black sexism from an early age on in addition to regular racial profiling and state sanctioned violence. Majority of society believe that this is exclusive to Black boys and men but Black girls have subjected to a lot of injustices from the early stages of life all the way up to the later stages when they are considered “angry Black women” for the simplest things. Racist police officers even have a role in the misogynoir Black girls face, having body- slammed innocent and unarmed Black girls as well as being acquitted of all charges speaks for itself. All of these examples support the notion that society rejects and demeans Black women’s humanity before they even get into the real world. Before they even go through puberty and understand the concept of how self-esteem or what body image is, the people of the world implement their misogynoir without letting them just be themselves.
Baker continues on to mention a study by Min, S.J., & Feaster, J.C. (2010) that examined a selection bias in news stations reporting and FBI statistics about missing children. The findings showed that Black and female victims got less coverage compared to other races. Kuntsman, J.W., & Plant, E.A. (2008) demonstrated that White women were less likely to help a Black victim in a situation that had a high level of emergency, such as sexual assault. Yet, compared to the other races such as White, White women were very likely to help them with a speedy response as well as with valuable help.
Katz’s (2017) study involved 160 participants total to observe the responses of White female college students to an incapacitated sexual assault that involves a potential victim that was Black. The independent variable in the study was the change of the potential victim’s name that varied from LaToya to Laura. The dependent variable was the participants own reports on whether or not they were willing to help and intervene, also the participant’s interpretation of the situation and what they perceived the victim to be like. The experiment involved random assignment so one of the two available conditions, participants were then asked to state whether they would have helped a potential victim and what their thoughts were about the situation at hand. Researchers rightfully assuming that the color of the victim’s skin would potentially cause less participants to intervene.
Sexual assault on college campuses are very friendly issues and that takes place in all racial and ethnic groups on campus. (Cantor et al., 2015) found that 21% of White female students an 18% of Black female students reported being sexually assaulted either forcibly or incapacitated. Numbers at historically Black colleges in universities are unexpectedly lower than the findings presented but the most common type of assault happens after the victim attended a party. The reason why this experiment is an important part of society and its findings are significant to research, is more because Black women at colleges can possibly be at a lower risk of incapacitated sexual assault if a bystander is willing to intervene. In real life situations that are replicated in this experiment, bystanders have a choice between their ethical values and their moral values. Which in turn, forces them to choose whether or not they want to blame the victim for being so drunk or the perpetrator for taking advantage of such an incapacitated person. Bystander intervention is such a crucial role for members of the society because even if a person that is in danger is a stranger, people should always say something or do something if they feel like a possible victim’s senses are impaired.
Of course there are different variables that have an impact on whether or not a bystander will intervene. Luckily, the study by (Brown, Banyard, Moynihan, 2014) involved 232 college students which 66% were female and 36% were Black, got a more in depth insight through screening participants by their age race and gender. Their findings show the participants were willing to intervene as a whole, but independently, women conveyed greater willingness to intervene than the male participants did, and White participants were less likely to intervene than the Black participants. According to the study, Brown, Banyard, Moynihan, (2014) college students believe that it is the norm to drink and engage in sexual activity on a regular basis especially if they believe that their friends are participating in these acts as well. Their data also supports the gender differences with the of attitude and behaviors men and women have on how to intervene and solve the situation at hand.
Due to this study, Kratz (2017) researchers can have a general idea on next steps to help implement bystander intervention. Researchers believed in having more education centered around what should be done in the time of crisis in order to better prepare them. Educators now have that opportunity to explain to students that no matter the racial or ethnical difference from a possible victim, they should feel the need to always lend a helping hand. In conclusion, the data definitely suggests that White women bystanders state that they are less willing to help a Black Woman that is at risk for being sexually assaulted. The data also shows that White women were victim blaming the Black potential victims by assuming that they possibly liked what was going on despite the fact that they were visibly incapacitated beyond the ability to consent to anyone. In summary, White women felt that it was not their responsibility to intervene if it involved a Black woman and they had no intention of doing so. Educators should implement the responsibility of a bystander despite what race they are. For the simple fact that they are a human being as well and if the situation were to be reversed and the bystander was the potential victim, they would want someone to intervene for them too.