Missing from this entire conversation is the connection between American racism and sexism: rape. As a Black woman, rape and the threat of rape, is the singular symbol of my American experience. Rape is the central symbol and practice of white supremacy, slavery, colonialism, and occupation: the rape of women, the rape of resources, the rape of history, and the rape of culture. At the center of the white male identity is the sense of entitlement. That entitlement can only be realized against a population of people who do not consent to white supremacy. Black women, who do not consent to white male entitlement, experience that entitlement the way we have always experienced it: rape. To justify the systemic and profitable practice of raping Black women, the white man has projected his own self-serving fantasy: Black women are amoral animals who enjoy forcible sex and dehumanization for reasons of our own. This kind of woman is called a "ho" in our communities. Black men, in an attempt to claim the powers of White manhood, has justified his identical desires to objectify Black women in the same manner. And we, Black women, have been protesting against both our dehumanization, our erasure, and our victimization since the days of Sojourner Truth.

Are we being silenced even now? Ask yourself how many Black women currently hold a Pulitzer Prize. How many of us are college professors, scholars, and writers (like myself)? How many Black women are leaders with international reputations? How many of these Black women appeared on CNN or any other network during this controversy? Angela Davis? Toni Morrison? Alice Walker? Eleanor Holmes Norton? Bell Hooks? Gwendolyn Brooks? Rita Dove? Lani Guinier? Condi Rice? The president of Liberia? Do you think any of us would ask Al Sharpton to be our spokesperson? Do any of us produce, publish, distribute, or profit from the kind of rap and hip/hop now under discussion? I am very grateful that the Rutgers coach and team are so eloquent. Apparently, they were the only Black women available to speak on my behalf. This alone is insulting!

It would be easy to blame Black men for this assualt. But since the profiteers in the music industry have always been white, and since 1 out of 3 Black men are incarcerated in a jail cell anyway (and therefore unable to "reap the rewards" of the humiliated womanhood in his own family), I would have to say that the Black community finds itself once again outmaneuvered: Rap/Hip-Hop was co-opted more than 15 years ago. As Billie Holiday wrote in her own autobiography decades ago, the music industry is "just another plantation." And we, the Black woman, are still preferred as the obliging, silent animals of every man's (White and Black) pornographic fantasy: rape without guilt. I guess that's why Mr. Imus can still claim being a "good person." Some men believe that you cannot rape a "ho." To determine how prevalent this belief is in the mainstream media, just go back to the early discussions of the Duke rape case. How many "well-intentioned" pundits did not believe a Black woman employed as an exotic dancer could be raped in the first place?

But since this nation is incapable of exploring its own history, its own white disease, its own tendency to rape, humiliate, and objectify, journalists will continue to ask stupid questions like yours. Is there anyone at Mother Jones capable of answering these stupid questions for you or is your publication, shall we say, "nappy head" free?

If you don't have any Black female voices on staff, do you suppose you could "guest" someone? Do you think any of us is grateful for your "well-intentioned" ventriloquy a full century after our freedom was granted and our human voices, supposedly, restored? No, damn it. We are not.

Dear K,

You are the first person I have heard or read in this entire mess to tell it like it is. Thank you so much.