I Am the Warden (and You Have Been Raped)

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

!!!!!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!!!!!: THIS BLOG CONTAINS GRAPHIC ADULT LANGUAGE AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND SOME PROFANITY.

This is for anyone who wonders about what women who have been raped deal with.

The first thing any college woman is taught in those early orientations is to never allow a man to know exactly where she lives until she gets to know him really well. This one can be tough, particularly when a young woman has had a really nice evening with a guy. She doesn’t think about rape. But, she better. I still remember the night my late friend Lynn called me on the phone in a panic.

“What’s wrong Lynn? Where the hell are you?” I asked.

“Girl, I had to fight this man off. He said he could cook. He wanted to make me dinner at his home. I didn’t think anything about it since a co-worker introduced us. Everything was fine until I got up to leave and he told me ‘You aren’t going anywhere.’ I had to hit him with a paper weight to get out the door.”

I remember that night. Lynn was so upset that she got on I-285, and circled the entire city because she literally forgot how to get home. She’s gone now, but I still think about it.

Then there was the friend that went to a party and woke up on a bed with her clothing on backwards. Scared to death for her, I made her go to the hospital. Well, they found semen with active sperm in her vagina. She never told anyone but me. She told me to “keep my damned mouth shut.” I’ve never betrayed the confidence of a friend in my life, but it annoys me to the point of not sleeping some time. “I just want to forget this,” she said.

I wish I could tell you that this doesn’t happen often, except it does. Every man reading this either knows some guy or guys that have run trains on drunk women or some of you reading this have done it yourselves. Some of you keep each other’s secrets; you shrug it off when a woman complains about some guy that follows her or won’t leave her alone. He’s just being a man, right?

My lifelong friend and brother G told me once that he didn’t like a particular guy we both knew. When I asked him why he didn’t like him, he said, “I think he got __________drunk one night and took advantage of her. I can’t prove it, but I know he did it. I hate that m*therf*cker!” Now let’s be clear, most women that are raped are raped by men they know and most rapes are not particularly physically violent. Most rapes happen in a flash with a much stronger and heavier man easily forcing himself on a stunned woman who may or may not be able to fight off her attacker or get away.

To all those men (and the women that protect them) who worry so much about what some poor man accused of rape is going through even when his alleged victims are credible, I have this to say. I’m not going to chapter and verse anyone about why women take so long to come forward. You already know why. Yet, the following scenario is for all those men who conveniently politicize the whole issue of rape; those men who not only defend their political allies who are accused of rape, but also those who gleefully jump on the bandwagon to support rape victims when the alleged rapist is on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Here’s what I’d like for you to imagine happening to you, since empathy on your part, seems to be in short supply:

Let’s say you find yourself in jail; and for the sake of argument, let’s say you are innocent of the criminal charges that have put you in that holding cell for a few days or in that prison for some years. Now, let’s pretend that some hardened prisoner whose nickname is “Beast,” is known for being a bit of a bully and he suddenly decides to “make you his bitch.” And please don’t even bother to claim that you’re not a Gay man and you would not let this happen. Let me stop you right there. Sex in prisons has nothing to do with anyone’s sexual orientation; no one of any sexual orientation wants or deserves to be raped. These rapes are not aggressive sexuality; these rapes are sexualized aggression and violence, acts of power and control over a victim, because after all, “making you his bitch” is technically saying that he’s turning you into “a woman.” The language itself says a lot about how women are devalued in the first place. Suddenly Beast grabs you; you yell for the guards, but no one comes.

Beast has you pent down, with his knee pressing on your back and his massive hands over your mouth. He tells you, “You know you want it.” He rams his penis into your rectum without wearing a condom and without any form of lubrication. The force of him hurts, but you can’t move until he’s decided he’s finished. Beast tells you that he knows you enjoyed it. He also tells you he will “kill your ass” if you say anything. You swear to yourself that you will tell the guards, that is, if you can muster the courage to let anyone know that you, a grown man, has allowed this to happen to you.

Finally, you get the courage to tell one of the guards that you think likes you and might hear you out. You eventually demand to speak to the warden. When you finally get to the warden’s office, I’m sitting there. That’s right, me, the person writing this blog.

When you tell me you’ve been raped, I ask for proof. There isn’t a rape kit. So you’re forced to pull down your pants and bend over so that I can take a look at the tears and bruises on your behind.

I look at you and say, “I’m sorry about this, but anything could have done this to your behind. You could have fallen on something. Are you sure you’re not just making this up to get out of some of your duties or to get even with Beast about something? Beast has been in here nearly ten years; and he was a lot of trouble at first, but he became a model prisoner. He’s up for parole in about a year. I would hate to ruin his life over something frivolous.” I am the warden and I have your life and well-being in my hands—and I know it.

So, I tell you that I will look into the matter. Without any further conversation I send you right back to your cell. You want special protection, but I inform you that doing so would make it seem like we had already tried and convicted your alleged rapist. I literally send you right back to Beast. After you leave, I tell the guards not to worry about any further investigation because this is a prison, and Beast was probably just another horny and sexually frustracted convict. “This shit happens all the time.” I have no sympathy for you at all. I have work to do, a prison to run. You and your allegations are just another inconvenience…I’m going to stop and leave this right here.

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

Aretha: A Mini-Multi-Ethnic History Lesson

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

Aretha is/was international and global and pro-Black and pro-people of color long before those phrases became buzz words. But you already know Aretha. She’s part of the soundtrack of my/your life. If you were paying attention, you know about her activism, her once offering to pay Angela Davis’ bail; and the hurt in her voice at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. My Dad was there. When he got home he said, “This is the only time I’ve ever heard Aretha sound so destroyed.” But let’s consider the setting at Atlantic Records that nurtured her after her dad, the Reverend C. L. Franklin decided that Aretha’s voice was as secular as it was sacred; that her piano-playing was as inventive as anyone out there. I always, always wanted Aretha to make an instrumental album of nothing but her on piano, but I digress…

Ahmet Ertegün, our brother from Turkey, along with Jerry Wexler, founded Atlantic Records with the mission to produce some of the best Rhythm and Blues and Soul music ever. They succeeded. Not long after they made Ray Charles a household name, they signed Aretha Franklin, who reigned as Queen on a record label that had no shortage of music luminaries: Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, The Drifters, The Spinners, The Pointer Sisters, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, The Bee Gees, and the list goes on. The early days for Aretha consisted of recording sessions with musicians, the majority of whom were young white men from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a tiny town that still does not have 15,000 residents. The Black brothers in the band grew up with Rhythm and Blues, but these white musicians took a turn toward the Blues and Soul Music and never, ever looked back. These cats backing Aretha produced some of the most poignant, memorable, timeless, and soulful music in the twentieth century.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Arif Mardin served as Aretha’s principle producer for over two decades at Atlantic Records. Mardin, another musical genius from Istanbul, Turkey impressed the hell out of Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones, so much so that after meeting these two Black American musical giants in 1956 after a State Department-sponsored concert, he became the first recipient of the Quincy Jones Scholarship at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. After Mardin graduated in 1961, he went to work for Atlantic Records. Aretha acknowledged him as the positive turning point in her career. Together they churned out the hits all of us already know. He produced that incredible gospel album “Amazing Grace” that everybody still talks about, and still plays.

So what is my point? Well, the whole concept of globalization has always existed in music and the arts; and it, for damned sure existed with Aretha; and for people of color. That multi-ethnic colored world that some white folks fear, the one that seems to be suddenly upon us has always been here. You’ve been grooving to it, remember? But know this: I don’t just know my people when I see them; I know them when and where I hear them. Marinate on that for a while. Rest in Paradise Queen of Soul, Aretha Louise Franklin.

A Message for Democrats

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

About a year ago, I was interviewed by veteran broadcast journalist Maynard Eaton. One of the things I told him was that “No one ever asks educators anything.” The recent election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina who unseated a veteran Congressman for New York’s 14^thDistrict DID NOT COME AS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO ME. Ocasio-Cortez is a newly elected Democratic Socialist and her opponent Joe Crowley, a 20-plus year veteran Congressman, out spent her campaign by a margin of 18 to 1. Go figure. Well, here are about five of my own observations that I think Democrats need to pay attention to:

First things first. Women are a big trend this year. We, women are sick and tired of being talked down to, ignored, condescended to, assaulted, raped, murdered, denied equal pay, you name it. The current administration’s open hostility to women has made it abundantly clear that more women should be and are running for office and winning. Men might start thinking about the fact that women are the majority. Now, many women will vote against their own interests to keep the peace in their households or to hold onto a deeply flawed belief that the needs of their particular ethnic or racial group outweigh the real problems and needs of women. A lot of young women no longer have the capacity to be that self-sacrificing; and that’s a good thing. Self-sacrificing for others has never gotten women much reward, only fatigue, frustration, and maybe a few extra flowers on Mother’s Day.

Second, women (and a few men I know) are now tired of the “Pissing Contests” far too many male candidates and political pundits make of the Democratic process. I personally find that “male competitive streak” a complete turn off. Very little productive work gets done when a group of men are trying to out talk, out preach, out pontificate, out work each other in their quest for some top position or for some form of dominance. This kind of competition can destroy a perfectly good social movement when hyper-masculine egos worry more about what will happen to and for themselves as individuals. Many women have adapted this masculine paradigm, but it rarely works for them. Women work best when they celebrate those things that are uniquely female and then fight against anything and anyone who works against women’s interests. I never forget that most of the so-called “established” Black male leadership and their attendant pontificators such as Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, John Lewis, along with pundits like Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Stanley Crouch, Cornell West, and Tavis Smiley, all went out of their way to hyper-critique Barack Obama when he sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. NONE of these men were Obama supporters until it became apparent that Obama would win the nomination. They were wrong over eight years ago, so I don’t trust their political instincts and I don’t like their pettiness. Women of all races and ethnicities were Obama supporters long before a lot of men decided to join his campaign. Right now, younger women (and by young, I mean any woman born after the Baby Boom) are successfully collaborating with each other on everything from television production to political campaigns. All Democrats might want to take a play out of the Feminine Playbook of female teamwork if you want to get elected.

Third, the Democratic Party is still currently dominated by aging men and women that young candidates and young voters see as part of a corrupt system. Some of these Democratic politicians are now in their late sixties or well into their seventies and they haven’t had a new idea in two decades. However, Bernie Sanders was an older white man that reached young America, the Millennials. Young Democratic Millennial America wanted Sanders as their Democratic candidate. My own “play niece” CeAvani who graduated Maynard Jackson High School here in Atlanta in 2017 told me that ALL of the students at her high school were “Feeling the Bern.” Democrats, hell bent on focusing on Hillary Clinton, never bothered to find out what portion of Sanders’ message and platform resonated so well with young voters and those who would soon be registered voters.

Fourth, every teacher, college instructor, and college professor you know could have told you that there were Bernie Sanders loyalists sitting in their classrooms. One of my former students told me point blank that there were elements of Socialism in Sanders’ message. There’s that terrifying word: Socialism. Yet, she said, that is exactly what drew her to him. Now, none of these young people are talking about Cold War Era Soviet-style Socialism where the government owns and controls everything. Yet, they do think certain protections (like having healthcare and not drowning in Student Loan Debt) ought to be things that they shouldn’t have to constantly worry about. It is no accident that newly elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is defined as a Democratic Socialist. I met and meet young Democratic Socialists with a variety of ideas almost every day. Yet, you can’t find any career Democratic politicians willing to examine this particular pulse in the youngest voting population in this country. (And here’s another sidebar to remember: It wasn’t Democratic or Republican members of Congress that put the National Rifle Association on notice; it was a group of high school students, led by 18-year-old Emma González, who formed the March For Our Lives Movement because they are weary of seeing their classmates shot to death because some crazy guy could easily purchase an assault rifle. They are currently going around the country registering people to vote.)

Finally, young people, and young women in particular, are about to reshape American politics in ways no Democrat over the age of 50 has ever seen. These young people do not engage in Twitter wars of words (a waste of time, if there ever was one). They don’t respond to or post every ridiculous comment our current president says. They are back on the streets. They are knocking on doors. They are going to places of business and schools and talking to people face-to-face instead of doing what lazy ass politicians do: namely, annoying everybody with robocalls. They are doing things not always covered by the news media. They have also discovered and perfected methods of campaigning where they don’t need as much money to get elected as the long term Congress People they intend to replace; and not a single current member of Congress can tell you how these young people are accomplishing any of this. So Democrats, if you want to regain some political momentum, you need to stop acting like young people have nothing to tell you. They do. You also need to stop thinking that the only way you should leave public office is in a coffin or an urn. For God’s sake, please retire with some grace; and remember our young people are not supposed to think just like you and I. If you care anything at all about them and about our future, you might consider that they are the future. They will outlive and out last us all. They will turn the tide.

Out of the Fog: A Christmas and New Year’s Wish

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

Photo of Bank of America Building by
© Leslye Joy Allen

By Leslye Joy Allen

While driving in the early morning hours in my beloved city of Atlanta, I saw the usual signs of city growth: traffic that can make a Nun cuss, shiny new buildings, massive construction everywhere, people bustling off to work, school and the airport, and homeless people huddled under bridges.

When I witnessed the top of the super large Bank of America Building on Peachtree Street, its steeple-shaped illuminated top seemed to hang in the air in our unusually heavy fog. If I did not know anything about this building or if I was a kid with a vivid imagination, the sight of that lighted steeple would have given me the best fantasies of flying saucers and aliens.

As I took that quick snapshot of the top of the Bank of America Building it made me think of the Star in the East. Even when I looked at the top of this building and recognized it in the distance, I knew that what I saw was only one component of the building. Maybe it was the brightest component, certainly the top of it. But it wasn’t hanging in the air by itself. So here is something to think about:

Puerto Rico, Dominica and St. Johns, Virgin Islands still have no electricity. There will be no Christmas lights and there probably will be no lights on New Years’ Eve. These tan and brown and black human beings have been without power for over 14 weeks at this writing. And just like the homeless in downtown Atlanta, many folks stay on these islands to protect what little possessions that they have left after hurricanes. They take cold showers when they can, and eat food prepared from makeshift kitchens. You may not give a damn about any of this because it doesn’t directly affect you, but it actually does. You may not care about all of these people of color, but you will because they are necessary in ways you may never have imagined. Remember, no one gave a damn about a homeless brown couple–with the wife being very pregnant–in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, either.

For much of the past year, many of us have whined and moaned about the current state of affairs in Washington, D. C. We have often exhausted ourselves with tales of political misconduct and malfeasance and sexual impropriety. We have listened to racist, sexist, homophobic, and misogynist rhetoric. And at times, I have to say, I wondered when (or if) anyone was going to get tired of feasting on all of it.

It’s not that these evil things don’t exist; they do! Yet, in our well-meaning attempts to publicize many of these problems, we often perpetuate our own lack of resolve to change any of it simply by believing that ranting about it on social media does anything more than help us blow off some steam. We often forget that much of this nation is built off and on the backs of people who now lay on the streets in cities all over the nation and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2018, let’s plan to get out and stay out of the fog long enought to recognize the rest of the building; and that the top cannot and never has stood without the support from all those floors and a steady foundation.

That’s it for the year folks. If you didn’t understand this post, I’m sorry, but that’s it. I’m tired, happy, at times anxious, exhilarated by our capacity to triumph, glad about the women who no longer ask permission to be great or to do the work they were born to do. I know we can change anything we want to change. But we can’t do any of it in a fog. Peace.

Woman Boycott

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

Rosa Parks Being Fingerprinted 1955

by Leslye Joy Allen

What if every male member of clergy in this nation arrived at his church on a Sunday or Saturday morning and not a single woman or girl was seated in the pews, or in the choir loft. Let’s say there were no women who ushered, and importantly no women putting money in his collection plate. And let’s say that every woman church goer decided to hold her own prayer meetings at a home or some other large venue with all of the other women that had stopped attending and working for these churches.

Now, let’s pretend that all of these women did this for over a year, just like the overwhelmingly Black female majority of bus riders did in Montgomery, Alabama during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956, the one sparked by Rosa Parks. And what if women stopped worrying about whether they fell out of favor with their pastors, even if many of their pastors were good men? What if they set up their own soup kitchens and their own counseling centers and homeless shelters and never asked Reverend So-and-So for his opinion, his input or his permission?

If women did all of the above in response to the weak and pathetic way too many male ministers have responded to the problem of women’s and children’s sexual abuse and harassment, I bet a lot of male ministers would rethink being apathetic or silent about this issue. I bet a lot of male ministers would rethink ignoring or condoning this kind of behavior. I bet a lot of male ministers would also do this out of the fear that without his female church members, he might end up at the unemployment office or in the soup line. Just a thought. Àṣẹ!

I’m still not blogging as much for a while…So, you are welcome to read my older blogs until I return later (trust, there is some good stuff in my archives at my blog)…I have to get my dissertation finished, and blogging and responding to every little detail is not on the agenda…In the meantime, stay focused, and stay woke, and for God’s sake don’t fall for the easy answers because the news media is full of “easy answers.” Do your research. Think for yourself. Peace and Blessings. I will see you when I see you. — Leslye Joy Allen