I have watched portions of the Gillette Commercial haranguing men, and there is a lot to criticize there. Others on the Internet have done a pretty good job of it. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nDs84E3BQI&t=675s ; see also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FILwhaFezec )
I wanted to comment on one scene in particular because I found it to be so far from reality. This is the scene where the attractive woman is walking down the street, in broad daylight, with many other people around, and a white guy sees her, and starts to follow her. I assume his intention is to speak to her, and maybe ask for her phone number. But, before he can do so, a black guy steps out and stops him and, I assume, explains to the white guy that this is wrong.
First of all, I don’t think a man simply approaching a woman in a respectful manner to speak to her on the street, in broad daylight when there are a lot of other people around, so she doesn’t have to fear what might be a potential assault, is wrong. It’s not wrong, in such a scenario, to ask for her phone number. A woman in that situation can either tell him to get lost, or, if she is less confrontational than that, she can give him a fake phone number, which women do all the time, and is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion. If the woman rebuffs the man in that scenario, or indicates she’s not interested, then he should, of course, leave her alone, and not act in a verbally abusive manner, much less, initiate physical force against her or threaten her. (Whether this is the best way for a man to meet women is another story -I tend to think it won’t work well.)
Second, the racial makeup of the participants in this scenario is laughable. The FBI crime statistics on rape and sexual assault demonstrate that it is highly probable that black men commit a disproportionate amount of the rapes. According to these statistics, in 2013, there were 13,515 rapes. 8,946 of those rapes were committed by whites. 4,229 of those rapes were committed by blacks. This means 66.2% of all rapes were committed by whites, while 31.3% of all rapes were committed by blacks. ( https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43 )
The absolute percentages do show that more rapes are committed by whites. But, to get a proper perspective on this, you have to keep in mind that blacks make up a little under 13% of the US population. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race)
This means that if blacks committed a strictly proportionate share of the rapes in the US, they would have committed. 0.13 * 13,515 = 1,757 rapes in 2013. But, as I noted previously, according to FBI crime statistics, blacks committed 4,229 rapes in 2013. In other words the number of rapes committed by blacks was about 2.4 times as high as it “should” be if blacks were committing rapes in line with their proportion of the population. (This figure was obtained by taking 4,229 and dividing it by 1,757, which equals about 2.4.) In other words, blacks are committing a disproportionate share of the rapes in the United States.
These statistics line up with my own personal experiences. (I fully admit I’m about to give nothing but anecdotal evidence, but, since the statistics appear to confirm my experiences, I think my anecdotes are relevant.)
I’ve only known two women who were likely the victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. (I may have known other women, but they haven’t shared their experience with me, so I don’t know if any other women I’ve met have ever been raped.)
The first was a teenage girl who was probably sixteen or seventeen at the time. She was white, and a neighbor of my family’s when I was about eight or nine years old. Her mother had married a black man, who was not her father. (Or, her white mother was just cohabiting with him, I don’t know which.) I learned through a conversation I overheard between my mother and my older sister that the black step-father had raped his step-daughter. I recognize that this could have been a false accusation. It was just second-hand, or even third-hand information. I also do not know what the result of this was. I don’t know if he was arrested, or convicted, of anything.
The second situation involved a client. (The facts I’m relaying are public knowledge, and nothing I’m saying is attorney-client confidential.) In this case, the client was assaulted by a black man in her home. He was subsequently arrested for this incident, and another incident where he had assaulted another woman.
Additionally, I’ve seen black men engage in numerous instances of what I can only describe as highly inappropriate or overly aggressive behavior, that often bordered on an initiation of physical force against women. I cannot recall a single instance of seeing white men do the same.
When I lived in Tallahassee, Florida, there were two malls. One seemed to have a much higher proportion of blacks frequenting it than the other one. I went to the “black mall” because it was closer to where I lived. I saw a lot of odd behavior at that mall. I was once called a “cracker” in the parking lot by a black man for no reason that I could discern, other than he didn’t like the color of my skin -but I digress.
One day while in the black mall in Tallahassee, I noticed one of the few other white people there, a blonde woman, who was walking towards me. I noticed that a black man was following her, trying to engage her in conversation, which she didn’t seem interested in having. She sort of acted like she was walking towards me, and I made eye contact with her. Then, she turned back towards the black man and said: “I have a boyfriend.”
This situation I saw in Tallahassee seems almost exactly like the Gillette commercial. But, unlike the “racial fantasy world” in the commercial, it is probably more representative of reality: black men engaging in unwanted or socially uncouth attempts to…what? Get a date? I’m not even sure what the black man’s “end game” was in that mall in Tallahassee. Did he really think this woman, who likely didn’t even make eye contact with him, was going to want to go out on a date with him? Or, did he just enjoy the “thrill” of bothering and possibly frightening this woman? I don’t know exactly what was going on inside his head. He was either mentally ill to believe that would “work”, or he had downright malicious motives and wanted to frighten or annoy her.
I’ve seen this sort of obnoxious and boorish behavior in bar environments too, and it’s always been black men engaged in it. A female friend was once approached in a highly aggressive manner by two black men as we were leaving the bar. I was a little bit in front of her, and heard her exclaim loudly in a way that expressed dissatisfaction with what was going on. Then she said: “I’m here with somebody,” to the two black men. I don’t know if they physically assaulted/touched her or not, and the situation was over quite quickly. I never asked her exactly what had happened. (That situation seems particularly “scary” when I think about it now, because it seemed like these black men were waiting at the front door for intoxicated women to assault.)
I also recently had a black man clumsily approach a female friend I was there with at a bar, and begin making a very bad attempt at conversation with her. (He was clearly quite intoxicated.) He was obstructing her view of the band, and when she asked him to move, he became belligerent and verbally abusive, calling her an “asshole”. At that point, there was a near-physical confrontation between myself and the black man. Eventually, I reported the matter to the bartender and he was thrown out, although he remained at the front entrance of the bar. I don’t know exactly what his intentions were, and he probably didn’t either, as he was drunk. Was he going to confront me physically when I left? Did he just want to yell at the bar owners? We left by a side entrance. (I avoid physical violence unless it’s an absolute last resort to defend myself or to defend friends/family.)
There have been other instances I’ve witnessed in bar environments. But, I think these, plus the statistics showing a disproportionate number of rapes are being committed by black men, are enough to paint an accurate picture of reality -as opposed to the Kafkaesque world of the Gillette commercial.
