Mar 26 2009

White Male Privilege?

Category: militaryharmonicminer @ 9:48 am

Marine Freed after Rape Conviction Overturned

Amazingly enough, it took Marine Sergeant Brian Foster 10 years to get his conviction heard by an appellate tribunal. That’s 10 years behind bars for allegedly raping his wife, a crime he has always denied committing.

The appellate court noted that, at the trial of the case, there was no forensic evidence of rape, Foster and his wife continued to have intercourse for years after the alleged attack and the allegations came in the middle of a contentious divorce and custody case.

The Marine Corps blamed a large backlog of cases and “judicial negligence” for the long delay in hearing Foster’s appeal. Military prosecutor Col. Tom Umberg said, “This injustice should have been resolved in 18 months.”

Interestingly, this article about Foster’s case refers to his wife Heather Foster living in the Denver area with “her” two sons (San Diego Union-Tribune, 3/14/09). Those would appear to be “his” two sons as well.

The article says Foster intends to continue in the Corps until his retirement. What he plans to do regarding his sons is not mentioned.

Sergeant Foster should get reparations, not just easy time until retirement. I continue to be dismayed at the way our military sometimes unjustly accuses its own, with a suspicious smell of PC assumptions that they are guilty until proven innocent.

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6 Responses to “White Male Privilege?”

  1. dave says:

    Hmm… I actually agree with you on this (about reparations), though I find it somewhat humorous that you seem think this is only a problem if it involves military personnel.

    I assume that you believe that ALL wrongfully convicted individuals deserve reparations, right?

  2. dave says:

    Oh… and title of this post is pretty absurd, as it has little/nothing to do with the content of the post.

  3. harmonicminer says:

    Dave, actually I DO agree that wrongfully convicted people deserve reparations. Further, I think wrongfully accused people who are imprisoned for a long period before being declared “not guilty” should be compensated. The legal system needs to own up to its failures, and make its case, or pay a price for essentially punishing a person they could not convict.

    The title of the post is to show that many bad things happen to white males, who are as powerless as anyone else when they happen. I have recently been hearing the phrase “white male privilege” a great deal. I hear black males complain of being stopped and searched by cops, etc. But I have been stopped for no reason and searched. I have been detained because I fit a description of some crook. I have been harassed for no reason by police. (In fact, I have been harassed by a BLACK police officer, for no reason whatsoever.) It happens. And bad things certainly happened to this Marine, and being white didn’t protect him. And pardon me, but I have just the teeniest little suspicion that if he was black, Jesse Jackson would have been all over it, probably calling it a double standard of justice, and so on.

  4. dave says:

    Dave, actually I DO agree that wrongfully convicted people deserve reparations

    Fair enough… then we agree on something.

    The title of the post is to show that many bad things happen to white males, who are as powerless as anyone else when they happen.

    And I don’t think that anyone would disagree that many bad things happen to white males, but that does not mean that white male privilege does not exist. You anecdotes are not proof against something.

    And bad things certainly happened to this Marine, and being white didn’t protect him

    Actually… you do not know that. Maybe being white helped him get a better lawyer after his conviction? Or maybe being white helped him get a better chance of being heard by a court? Just because being white didn’t keep him from being convicted doesn’t mean that being white didn’t help him.

    And pardon me, but I have just the teeniest little suspicion that if he was black, Jesse Jackson would have been all over it, probably calling it a double standard of justice, and so on.

    This is really, really ironic, being that I have never seen you, or Glen Sacks, talk about any person of color who was wrongfully convicted. So you can imply that Jesse Jackson is hypocritical, but it sure rings hollow when you do the exact same thing, but just replace military with black.

  5. harmonicminer says:

    Dave, I don’t really post on every single event in human history, just the ones that catch my eye. This one did. And my point stands, that blacks are prone to interpret mistreatment from other people as coming at them because they are black, while whites know it’s just the luck of the draw, bad as that luck may be sometimes.

    I’m not saying there is no racism, and that no one ever mistreats a black person from racist motives, but I am questioning how many times that’s actually an accurate assessment.

    Dave, just curious: do you just read to find something to argue with, no matter how trivial it is? Or do you actually feel so passionately opposite to me about nearly every single little thing in the universe? Shucks… the fact that we have a minor point of agreement here is making me nervous.

  6. dave says:

    I don’t really post on every single event in human history, just the ones that catch my eye. This one did.

    I get that… but it is interesting on what catches your eye.

    do you just read to find something to argue with, no matter how trivial it is?

    I don’t find this post, or the subject matter, to be trivial at all. The subject matter – wrongful convictions, and white privilege (and the connection between the two – is something that I am very passionate about.

    Or do you actually feel so passionately opposite to me about nearly every single little thing in the universe?

    Well… when you are wrong about so much, there is a lot to be opposed to. 🙂

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