“The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favored with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men. “   

  • H.L. Mencken

 

A few days ago in Detroit, a black woman whose name hasn’t even been released by the police yet, killed her boyfriend.  Here is how The Detroit News describes the incident:

“A 26-year-old man is dead and a 20-year-old woman is under arrest after an alleged hit-and-run crash Tuesday night on Detroit’s west side, police said. The crash took place at about 9:15 p.m. on West Seven Mile near Trinity, which is just west of Burt Road. Police say the victim and a woman driving a black Ford Fusion “appeared to be having an argument.” Then, the driver of the Fusion allegedly struck the man with the vehicle. He died from his injuries. Three hours later; the woman was taken into police custody, a Detroit Police Department statement on the matter said.” (www.detroitnews.com)

Now, a simple Youtube or Google search of the topic will provide you with video footage of the incident.  After seeing it, two facts of the incident become immediately obvious. The first is that the victim is a black male and the second is that perpetrator is a black woman. This is very important. As we all know when a crime is committed against a man by a woman it is viewed differently. That holds doubly true when the victim is a black man and the perpetrator is a black woman.

Back in August, Steve Stephens infamously killed an elderly man by the name of Robert Godwin in a Facebook livestream. In another post on Facebook he went on to say that blamed the shooting on a woman, his ex, Joy Lane.

This prompted an inordinate amount of rhetoric about the mental health, or more accurately, the lack thereof of black men. People like Sophia A Nelson and others of her ilk latched on to this story and used it in an attempt to label all black men as people who have mental illness and as menaces to society at large, but women in general, and black women particularly.

Furthermore, they basically insinuated that all black men are domestic abusers and as unable to handle rejection from women.

Granted, it has only been a few days, but I highly doubt that people such as Sophia A Nelson and others will have anything to say about this latest incident. They won’t because it runs counter to image of black men that they want to portray.  If they do address it, I’m sure they will try to rationalize away her behavior and make all manner of excuse as to why she can’t or shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions.

Fellas, this is where the double standard once again rears its ugly head. Notice how when Steve Stephens committed his crime, it became an indictment on all black men? Sophia A Nelson and her cohorts made no distinction between him and other men black men.  No, the assertion was made that Steve Stephens isn’t an individual, but indicative and representative all black men as whole.  He became the standard bearer for all black men, and they were all essentially one and the same. Yet anytime the shortcomings of black women are put on display, the narrative quickly becomes that not all black women are that way and we shouldn’t generalize or lump them all together because the woman in question is an individual.

Now, I present to you the aforementioned situation in Detroit.  Here we have black woman killing a black man by running him over with her car. Yet this woman’s name hasn’t even been released to the public. At this point, it isn’t speculation or conjecture, but a known fact that a crime was committed. Video of the incident is readily available and the woman was identified and taken into custody as a result of video evidence and eyewitnesses, not mention the vehicle used in the incident as well as her plates. Despite all this seemingly damning evidence, her name is being withheld from the public. Why?

Now I ask you, would that be the case had this been a man?  If a man is merely suspected or accused of rape, sexual assault, battery, or any assortment of crimes against a woman he will be taken into custody and his picture plastered all over media for the world to see. No presumption of innocence is given. No respect for him or his family or the ramifications that this will have on him or them are taken into account before exposing him to the world before the facts come out or at least before he’s formally charged.

Those who have read my articles, and thank you for doing so, know where I stand on the issue of equality. For the benefit of those that don’t, allow me to elaborate. I define equality as equal responsibility as well as equal accountability. Where, I ask, is the equal accountability? This woman’s identity has been hidden from the world with a litany of damning evidence after committing a heinous act against a man, and yet she is treated with reverence and respect. Why? Because time and time again we are shown that as a man, you don’t matter, you aren’t as important as women. Again, ask yourself this. If you juxtapose the victim and perpetrator in this situation, would the outcome be the same?

Equally as appalling in this situation is the public sentiment and the attempt somehow act is if this is ok.  On various sites, be they gossip sites like mediataout.com or news outlets such as Fox or CNN; comments about the situation have a strikingly dark similarity.  To be fair, I will give to the women making these comments something that people like Sophia A Nelson didn’t give brothers when commenting on Steve Stephens. That is to say that this isn’t indicative of all women, but even so it is true of enough to warrant concern.

The rumor is that the incident was caused because the victim broke up with her and told that he was leaving her for another woman. In the comment sections of various websites once this was made public had several disgusting remarks to the effect that he deserved it for leaving her, playing with her heart, etc. So again, what you have lack of equal accountability, one of the two pillars upon which I believe equality is built. That excuse didn’t fly for Steve Stephens, so why it should for this still unnamed woman?

Once again, the double standard rears its ugly head.