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1 comment from readers

arb1986
07 August 2008 at 01:50

I recently came across your article Gang rape is too prevalent in the Caribbean community ‘Gang Rape is too prevalent in the Caribbean community’ and I was extremely saddened but not shocked at what I had read.

I am very sorry to hear of what happened to your girlfriend Betty. As a woman I can empathize at how such an evil crime against her must have affected her severely. I apologize as I cannot even find the words to express the years of anguish and heartache rape can bring to victim and her family and it also disgusts me at how people of our own race can do this to each other.

I am writing because I felt I had to, partly to thank you for joining the side of black women and girls in this fight for us and party because I feel I must do or say something and not stay quiet about how strongly I feel on such subjects.

Please don’t think I am ‘dogging’ black men nor am demonizing black women, but it does worry me how back in the late 90’s, the solutions to such issues of gun crime and knife attacks were down to ‘lack of role models’ and the issues of gang rape among young girls were completely ignored.

I understand your plight and only wish I was reading ‘New Statesmen’ when I was starting school to comprehend this article and pass it around among my female friends.

Even back then I remember as a 13 year old, when hearing rumors of black girls on which estate had been raped and by which group of boys, me and a few other black girls would discuss our concern about such problems as this our innocent slumber parties. And yes I have heard too many times, the pathetic yet common excuse of ‘white boys do it to’ from other girls and even adults alike.

(In reference to Channel 4 viewers in paragraph 5), I commend you for not tolerating such nonsense. Id says ‘Whether white men do this or not should not interest us. We are not white, our families are not white and we are not part of a white community therefore whether white men do this or not should not even be brought into context when dealing with tribulations within our own community.’ But yet I was demonized.

This was when I was a young teenager, but what saddens me reading your article is that it is apparent that even the people who are in power are just as ignorant and immature.

It makes me angry that the very people who are suppose to be looking out for our races interests, are the ones who are causing our races demise. I’ve always felt that the perpetuating hatred of the white man has been nothing but a distraction for afro Caribbean people to not look within our own community and recognize the problems that restrict our selves from moving forward.

I know this article may fall on deaf ears, but with the likes of the ‘Southall Black Sisters’, the token white boys of ‘New Nation’ and the former advisor of race relations Lee Jasper (who I always felt resembled a blood sucking pimp rather than a representative for the interest of ethnic communities) against you in the frontline I wanted to know if you are still fighting the war. I would like know how I can join the fight too.