Case of Tawana Brawley
Tawana Brawley (* 1971), a black American from Wappinger , New York , received national media attention in 1987 at the age of 15 on charges of rape against six white men. The allegations were fueled by prominent supporters such as Al Sharpton and lawyers Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason and had significant public echo.
After taking evidence, a grand jury came to the conclusion in 1988 that Brawley had not been the victim of an attack, but had presented himself as such. An accused judicial officer successfully sued Brawley, Sharpton, Maddox and Mason for defamation.
The case revealed a significant social division. Negative stereotypes against black women played a broad role.
backgrounds
On November 28, 1987, Brawley, who had been missing for four days, was found passed out in a garbage bag near an apartment she had previously lived in. The clothes were torn and burned, charcoal characters and traces of feces were on her body.
She was taken to the emergency room; she did not answer questions from an investigator. The family requested that a black officer be brought in. Brawley described multiple rapes by at least three white men, including a police officer, in the initial questioning. In contrast, there were statements from witnesses who saw Brawley at parties during the alleged kidnapping and the medical examinations, after which no injury or scratches, let alone traces of repeated rape, could be proven. Brawley later withdrew the rape allegation as such, but remained with the allegation of sexual assault. The droppings turned out to be leftovers from a neighbor dog. Burn marks and the like indicated that the kidnapping had been faked in the apartment.
Public response
The public was initially on Brawley's side. Bill Cosby was one of the supporters and raised money for her legal representation. In December 1987, over a thousand people demonstrated for them, including Louis Farrakhan .
As prominent supporters such as Al Sharpton and lawyers Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason pushed the case forward, it made national headlines and a clear divide between black and white Americans. In June 1988, when asked whether Brawley had lied, blacks (51%) and whites (85%) answered yes differently.
Sharpton, Maddox and Mason claimed white officials and politicians were trying to cover up high-profile stakeholders. Steven Pagones , a deputy prosecutor, was specifically accused of being one of the rapists and a staunch racist. Pagones successfully sued for libel, instead of the required $ 395 million, he was awarded several hundred thousand dollars in compensation. Brawley was fined $ 185,000. The $ 65,000 fine against Al Sharpton was borne out by businessmen Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Earl G. Graves Jr. accepted.
Brawley converted to Islam and sticks with the allegations.
The case is mentioned as a political catchphrase in the feature film Do the Right Thing . Brawley makes a cameo in the introductory song video of Fight the Power by Public Enemy .
Possible background
The decision of the grand jury indicated a different background. Presumably, Brawley wanted to avoid punishment from her mother and stepfather. Ralph King's stepfather was a well-known violent criminal and had not only made sexual advances to Brawley, but tried to beat her at the police station after an earlier case of shoplifting. On the day of her alleged kidnapping, Brawley visited her friend Todd Buxton in prison. Possibly Brawley had faked the case with her mother to avoid punishment. What must have happened to get a teenager to humiliate himself in this way is another question raised by sociologist Jonathan Markovit, among others.
The police were accused of not having sufficiently considered the problematic family background. Brawley remained in the care of his father-in-law and mother, and the separation from the family environment, which is common among younger victims of sexual violence, was not carried out. Sharpton and others have been accused of using Brawley as a showcase for a politically motivated campaign. The case is also seen as a sign of a considerable division in American society, as well as deep-seated prejudices, even among the black community, against the American mainstream and US institutions.
Individual evidence
- ^ Edwin Diamond: The Media Show. The Changing Face of the News, 1985-1990. MIT Press, 1991.
- ↑ Court TV ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Pagones v. Maddox et al.
- ↑ Jim Yardley: After a Decade, Brawley Reappears and Repeats Charges. , New York Times . December 3, 1997. Retrieved April 18, 2008.
- ↑ Jonathan Markovitz: Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
- ↑ K. Sue Jewell: From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond. Cultural Images and the Shaping of US Social Policy. Routledge, 1993. p. 200.
- ^ Report of the Grand Jury on the Tawana Brawley Investigation . Court TV . October 29, 1988. Archived from the original on April 18, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 19, 2007.
- ^ Evidence Points to Deceit by Brawley - NYT, September 27, 1988
- ↑ Michael Randall: At tense relationship. , Times Herald-Record . November 1, 2006. Retrieved April 18, 2008.
- ^ Robert Charles Smith, Richard Seltzer: Contemporary Controversies and the American Racial Divide . Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
- ^ Playing politics with death. , Salon.com . Archived from the original on June 30, 2007 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 21, 2007.
- ↑ Joseph P. Fried: Hoping Brawley Thinks Of 'Damage She Caused'. , New York Times . March 2, 2003. Retrieved March 20, 2007.
- ^ Sharpton's Debt in Brawley Defamation Is Paid by Supporters . New York Times; June 15, 2001
- ^ Dorian Block: 20 years later, Tawana Brawley has turned back on the past , New York Daily News . November 18, 2007. Retrieved May 9, 2008.
- ^ Evidence Points to Deceit by Brawley , New York Times . September 27, 1988. Retrieved January 20, 2008.
- ^ Brawley Case: Stubborn Puzzle, Silent Victim , New York Times . February 29, 1988. Retrieved January 20, 2008.
- ^ Martha Miles, Richard L. Madden: After the Grand Jury; What Happened to Tawana Brawley's Case - And to Attitudes About Race and Justice. , New York Times . October 9, 1988. Retrieved April 18, 2008.
