In the seminal 1982 anthology, Long Memory: The Black Experience in America, authors John Blassingame and Mary Frances Berry included a reference to the 1951 episode in which “Matt Ingram, a black tenant farmer in Yanceyville, North Carolina, was charged with assault with intent to rape a white girl, although he was 75 feet away from her at the time. He was eventually convicted of assault, however, based on her fear of his supposed ‘reckless eyeballing’.”
This was actually a statute that was on the books in many southern states after the Civil War, and even after it was taken off the legal books it still got some blacks killed … including Emmett Till.
Ingram’s “crime” was “looking” at her — a white woman — in a manner she found offensive. Now fast-forward to 2015 in Ohio and the recent case where a white cop gave a black motorist a ticket supposedly for not signaling a lane change within the proper 100 feet of making such a change. But while on camera, the cop stated the real reason he stopped the black male was because he made and held “direct eye contact” with the cop. In other words, he dared to look a white man in the eye.
Foolishly, I thought that “reckless eyeballing,” a rule some old-time prison guards still attempt to enforce with a vengeance, went out of style with Jim Crow. But evidently, like Jim Crow, it’s not yet dead.
Which brings me to The Ohio State University, which, in a fit of seeming overreaction to campus rape — which is a serious problem and one that must be dealt with firmly and appropriately — has gone overboard and established rules that are reminiscent of “reckless eyeballing.”
Under the policy set forth last year, sexual harassment is defined as: “Any deliberate or repeated language, behavior, or visual display that causes a person fear, anxiety, shame, or embarrassment.” So far, so good. But then it goes on to define sexual harassment as “unwanted touching, patting, hugging, brushing against another person’s body or staring.”
Staring? In other words, “reckless eyeballing.”
Now, back in the day, I used to have a woman that worked, among other things, as a topless dancer (actually, she worked bottomless too if that’s what it took for her to get paid) and late one night when she came into the after-hours joint we used to hang out at in lower Manhattan, she was as mad as a wet hen.
“This silly-assed new hillbilly bitch,” she fumed, “tried to get this black dude thrown out of the club because she didn’t like the way he was staring at her! Damn, I thought that was what the fuck we were supposed to do, get the suckers to stare at us … and then buy us splits of over-priced, watered-down champagne.”
Again I will state that rape on America’s college and university campuses is a serious problem and should be addressed as such. But I fear who just might get charged with what amounts to “reckless eyeballing.”
While some scantily clad white co-ed might not find the stares of the blond-haired, blue-eyed captain of the football team offensive, she just might feel differently if the big black buck running back looks at her in the same manner. What could be considered “an appreciative look” when done by one dude, could be considered “lewd and lascivious” — sexual imposition — when done by another.
If I were a black dude attending The Ohio State University, I just might invest in a pair of sunglasses just to assure that I didn’t wind up listed as a Tier Two sexual predator. Stranger things have happened when it comes to black men, white women, and sex. Trust me on that one … I know from, painful, firsthand experience.
Like it or not, women — both black and white — sometimes do lie, or desperately want to live out their sexual fantasies. I just don’t want some innocent brother (or white guy for that matter) to get caught up, ensnared by a criminal justice system that historically has been prone to overreact to the hot issue du jour.
[Photo by Lauren Powell-Smothers]
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.