the system uses its own rules to propagate itself

"The Air Force is dropping all charges against Hernandez, the 20-year-old woman at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., who was to face court-martial Sept. 24 on charges of indecent acts and underage drinking related to a May 2006 sexual encounter in a base dorm room."

Hernandez was charged with indecent acts (facing up to a year in prison, bad-conduct dismissal from the air force, and a possible requirement to register as a sex offender) when, after reporting a rape, she was intimidated into not testifying.  The accused rapists were given immunity to testify against her.

And then it took sixteen months for the Air Force to admit that this was ridiculous?  Sheesh.

Now she says that "she is no longer sure about a career in the Air Force."

This is yet another way the dominant culture works to exhaust and demoralize the people it oppresses.  The whole power of the system mobilizes in order to pressure us to Shut Up and Go Away.  And when we bend under the weight of the system, they can claim that the problem is that we bend and pretend that it's not that the weight is unbearable.

People's responses to this have infuriated me. That this was considered a "controversy" and not just obvious stupidity underscores: if you are a female of color in the armed services (or anywhere else), the system requires that you be absolutely spotless or else the system will use anything it can allege to squish you.  Not that being inhumanly spotless will help.  The system will make shit up if it has to.  But any spot of tarnish ("underage drinking") means that white folks and men will decide it's okay to wash their hands of you because you're not perfect. 

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Because I needed to post this some place:

Nora guest-blogged over at Angry Black Woman on July's Supreme Court decision on segregation.  She gives a womderful synopsis of some of Beverly Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and her own experience of it and its ramifications.