To NY Pig Commissioner William Bratton: Stop Putting the Responsibility to Stop Rape and Violence Against Women on Women!

January 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader:

Recently, in a radio interview the New York City police commissioner William Bratton encouraged women going to clubs and bars in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn to adopt the buddy system if they take a cab late at night. Fuck you, Pig Bratton, for putting the onus on women to avoid rape instead of calling out the men that are carrying out these assaults! Fuck you for implying that the best answer to increased rapes is for women to never be alone or intoxicated late at night! Let’s be completely clear: rape or sexual harassment or assault is NEVER the fault of the victim. Rape is a CRIME, and all too often women are made to feel like they are somehow complicit in the crimes committed against them because they were unable to prevent it, which keeps them locked in silence and shame.

This attitude is fundamentally no different than the Toronto cop who said, “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” That asshole pig’s comments kicked off the “Slut Walks” and people righteously took to the streets to demand an end to rape culture. This attitude is also not any different than the religious patriarchs like the Iranian mullahs who assert that women cannot be allowed outside without a man to escort them, “for their own benefit.”

Let’s also be clear that it’s this patriarchal system that perpetuates male supremacy, gives rise to this revolting rape culture, and to social relations where men feel entitled to use women’s bodies as if they are commodities or property. NO! This is not the truth, the truth is that women are FULL HUMAN BEINGS who deserve the right to be able to walk down the street, be on public transportation, in their own home, at school, in their dorm room, to just EXIST without the constant threat and terror of rape and harassment.

Let’s also get clear on the fact that the role of the police is in serving and protecting this system which is horrifically oppressive towards women! The police have NO solution to rape or the overall oppression of women, and in fact are very much a part of the problem, and they should be the last ones that ANYONE should call on for any kind of justice or advice. (See, for example: "Police Rape & Impunity: A Revealing and Totally Outrageous Epidemic" and "Prison Rape: A Human Rights Crisis in the USA." We don’t need the system to “work better for women,” we don’t need to call on the police who all too often have carried out rape, violence, and murder at the behest and in line with the interests of this system, and have overwhelmingly gotten away with carrying out crimes against oppressed people. What we need is a revolution that could actually liberate women, and put an END to rape, for once and all! What is needed RIGHT NOW is for thousands to wake up, and wage fierce cultural and political resistance to fight the war on women, with an eye to the FULL liberation of women.

So again, Pig Commissioner Bratton, you state-backed operative, FUCK YOU. You have no real solutions to stopping or ending rape, and you should be seen as totally illegitimate in terms of any kind of real solution to any of this system’s problems. You have NO answers, but the Revolution does!

 

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