Pink Kangol Mafia?
by Shelton Hull
As Americans, we can all expect to see the tragic demise of some woman or child paraded across our TV screens at least once per week for as long as television exists. As Floridians, we can be sure that our state will feature prominently in about every third or fourth case, depending on how many Florida debacles are already in the media cache. If this sad new reality is unacceptable to a single living adult, it is impossible to tell.
Over the past year, this column has compiled, in strictly anecdotal form, dozens upon dozens of stories from women whose personal violations were ignored, excused or flat-out abetted by the state. Now, obviously, one’s interest in living past 30 with a viable career precludes the naming of names, but suffice to say that every reader must know at least one woman this has happened to. Beatings, stalkings, molestings, date-rapings and worse: the mind reels at what “men” are capable of, and the weakness shown by power in the face of this epidemic of misogyny and unrestrained vice defies logic.
It’s widely held that about 95% of all sexual assaults go unreported; this figure is recited by abuse professionals in the same tone of voice our leaders use to tell us that the national debt is double what it was five years ago. That is, they are not happy about it, but they know that there is no possibility of the condition ever being recitified. These animals will be stopped the day after we stop killing Arabs for their oil. Until then, this figure of 95% exists as a blanket insult to every man in America and a veiled threat to all women. It means that only 5% of victims feel they have anywhere to turn in their hour of greatest need, and that 100% of rapists know their odds of being punished are, at best, one in ten.
It’s not that our leaders, locally or nationally, are bad people, it’s just that their political and financial interests preclude doing the right thing. We all know that a small percentage of the nation’s law-enforcement community is actively sabotaging itself by cutting corrupt deals with criminals and committing abuses that erode popular support for the increasingly intrusive measures needed to keep the rabble in line. Clearly, too many of us are uncomfortable being free, and secretly long to see those freedoms lost, so our own miserable lives are a bit more manageable. We may get our wish.
Women can look ahead to the just-now official 2008 campaign of Hillary Clinton as their first chance to address this problem on a national level. This is a woman whose essential femininity has been viciously attacked by the media for 15 years now. Every inch of her body, from her hair to her ankles to her reproductive organs, has been subject to gossip and speculation; her qualities as a wife and mother were run down by a bunch of political cuckolds. When she touts her skill at dealing with “evil and bad men,” she refers not to her husband, but to the vast right-wing conspiracy that put all our lives at risk just to bring down the Clintons. Maybe resistance to the “Iron Butterfly” – currently the only Presidential frontrunner ever who, allegedly, cannot win, is rooted in a certainty about what she would do if elected. All murders are committed by people whose criminal trajectory was a matter of public record. Not one of them ever has to happen- ever. Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar, a rube or a traitor. Or maybe he’s just a mannish boy; you’ve all seen the type, and what they’re capable of.
If present trends continue, one can well expect an enhanced militarism among American women unseen in the nation’s history. Mafias develop in response to the needs of oppressed minorities, and while women constitute a majority, they are not treated that way by the men who run our society. Jessica Lunsford’s pink Kangol could easily be the symbol for a new paradigm, one in which the kind of men who do such things will never again enjoy the pretense of safety. Studies show that women are becoming increasingly violent in response to lingering abuse issues; they are the fastest-growing part of the gun market, and martial arts training is way up. Women’s longstanding defensive posture will turn harshly offensive. In the absence of a real governmental commitment to protecting women and children, the ladies will do it for themselves, no doubt. ◼
