{"id":3196,"date":"2007-02-23T14:19:27","date_gmt":"2007-02-23T21:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/23\/the-beating-of-billy-ray-johnson\/"},"modified":"2007-02-23T14:19:27","modified_gmt":"2007-02-23T21:19:27","slug":"the-beating-of-billy-ray-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3196","title":{"rendered":"The Beating Of Billy Ray Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

BlackAmazon <\/a>links to this Texas Monthly<\/em> article<\/a> about the case of Billy Ray Johnson, a disabled black man who was knocked unconscious by some white partiers and then dumped unconscious on a deserted roadside for several hours. Johnson lived, but with severe and apparently permanent damage. What makes the case particularly outrageous is that two juries have refused to do more than slap the perpetrators on the wrist, and now the town’s white residents are inclined to excuse the perpetrators and blame the victim.<\/p>\n

Here’s a few quotes from the article:<\/p>\n

And yet, after Corey, Wes, Colt, and Dallas were each arrested and charged that October with aggravated assault (Lacy, who cooperated with investigators, was not charged), they were seen, by some, to be victims as well. “These boys’ names are ruined for life,” Corey\u2019s mother, Martha Howell, later told one reporter. “And [Billy Ray] is better off today than he\u2019s ever been in his life. He roamed the streets, the family never knew where he was. Now in the nursing home he\u2019s got someone to take care of him.” […]<\/p>\n

Wilford Penny told the Chicago Tribune one month after stepping down as Linden\u2019s mayor that the incident had been \u201can unfortunate and senseless thing\u201d but that \u201cthe black boy was somewhere he shouldn\u2019t have been.\u201d […]<\/p>\n

When I met with the jury foreman, a warehouse manager named John Reed, he explained that some jurors had thought Billy Ray\u2014who had taken the stand to give a few halting answers\u2014had faked his symptoms and had practiced seeming slow and walking poorly. “As far as I\u2019m concerned, everyone\u2019s to blame,” Reed said. “Wes Owens shouldn\u2019t have carried him out to that party, and Billy Ray should have known better than to go drink beer with a bunch of white boys.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stupid racist assholes.<\/p>\n

(Notice how, in that last quote, Wes Owens gets a last name but Billy Ray Johnson doesn’t?)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

That last quote from the jury foreman (“Billy Ray should have known better than to go drink beer with a bunch of white boys”) reminds me a bit of the frequent response people give after hearing about a rape — “she should have known better than to be drunk in that part of town\/ that bar\/ that dorm room” etc.<\/p>\n

But it’s not reasonable to suggest that black people spend their entire lives avoiding ever being alone with white people. Likewise, it’s not reasonable to suggest that women to spend their lives cloistered like nuns (or prisoners) for fear of making themselves vulnerable to rape. You might as well say, “well, she shouldn’t have been crossing the street; she had to know that crossing the street made it more likely she’d be hit by a car.”<\/p>\n

Not useful advice.<\/p>\n

We need to get to a point where fewer people, commenting on these horrible attacks, say what boils down to: “The victims should have stayed in their place, then maybe they wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”<\/p>\n

\"Keep<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BlackAmazon links to this Texas Monthly article about the case of Billy Ray Johnson, a disabled black man who was knocked unconscious by some white partiers and then dumped unconscious on a deserted roadside for several hours. Johnson lived, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}