![]() ![]() The 9-year-old should have apparently known better, while the Rochester police department extends grace, compassion and understanding to unjustifiable violence perpetrated by four trained adults in the form of paid suspension and administrative leave. Handcuffed in the backseat of the patrol car, the child pleads, “Officer, please don't do this to me.” “You did it to yourself, hon,” the officer responds. The officer scolds her, saying “you’re acting like a child.” “I am a child!” she reminds him. In the video, she is screaming for her dad and refusing to enter the patrol car. 29, a police officer in Rochester, New York, pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old Black girl. (This same “girl” would later shush the Black 66-year-old journalist, telling her, “Alright, Gayle, enough.”) “I don’t - racism is - how is one girl accusing a guy about a phone a crime?” I've lived probably just the same amount of life as him, she said. When recalling her attempted robbery and assault of a Black 14-year-old, Miya Ponsetto gave a masterclass in this hypocritical defense: “I’m a 22-year-old girl,” Ponsetto told CBS’ Gayle King in an interview last month. But when white women are absolved of toxic white femininity with a similar “girls will be girls” mentality as Harrison displayed, there is no fierce condemnation to be found among white feminists, unburdened as they are from the heavy intersections of misogynoir, Moya Bailey's and Trudy's term for the unique anti-Black misogyny faced by Black women. The exhaustive task of condemning and dismantling the dangerous “boys will be boys” mentality has fallen largely on women. (See: George Stinney, Emmett Till, Tamir Rice, Santos Rodriguez and Jason Pero, for a selection from an all too long list.) And while Black men and other men of color absolutely benefit within their respective communities, in the larger predominantly white United States, Black and brown boys aren’t granted the same level of protection. Of course, this rule only applies to straight cisgender men. The future tense implies that men always remain boys, no matter their age - even when they harass, abuse, injure and kill. The concept of “boys will be boys,” has for over 500 years been used to defend, indulge and absolve young boys and grown men alike of the bad, often inexcusable behavior associated with and expected of them. Harrison explicitly compared Kirkconnell’s racist adult conduct to his own childhood and the “games we played on the school ground that are not OK today.” But then, white men like Harrison are all too familiar with the conflation of inexcusable behavior, childhood and youth. Harrison referring to Kirkconnell as a girl is doubly problematic, simultaneously patronizing this 24-year-old woman and, in his performative protection, reinforcing denigrating perceptions of adult women and stripping them of their self-autonomy. ![]() “What are your thoughts about Rachael Kirkconnell and the allegations attached to her?” asked Lindsay. ![]() Three days later, Harrison sat down for an interview with Extra TV correspondent Rachel Lindsay, the star of “The Bachelorette” in 2017 and the first Black lead of the franchise. 6, British tabloid The Sun resurfaced photos of Kirkconnell attending an antebellum plantation-themed ball at Georgia College & State University in 2018. 4 interview, he simply that “rumors are dark and nasty and can ruin people's lives” and “he would give people the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully she will have her time to speak on that.” James was left on his own to address the controversy. Viewers uncovered likes she’d given to photos with Confederate flags among other controversial images. It’s an unearned sanctifying of Kirconnell’s perceived youth that stings all the more for how blatantly it’s withheld from Black girls.įormer high school classmates accused Kirkconnell of bullying them for dating Black men. Longtime franchise host Chris Harrison summed it up in his recent appeal for Kirkconnell, an adult woman, to be granted “grace,” “understanding” and “compassion” for her actions as a “girl” from just a few years ago.
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