Megan Williams

[Le Libérer]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/5555...mitch13.article (http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/555553,CST-NWS-mitch13.article)

Two mothers refused to hide kids' torture
No savior for Emmett Till, but justice possible for this woman

September 13, 2007
BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist
It took a lot of courage for Carmen Williams to reveal the identity of her 20-year-old daughter.

Williams is the mother of Megan Williams, the black West Virginia woman who was tortured, stabbed, sexually assaulted and treated like an animal by six white offenders during a weeklong captivity.

You never get used to the lurid details of a man's inhumanity.

Just as it was hard to bear the horrible things that were done to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the white Knoxville, Tenn., couple brutally killed in January, I'm sickened by the cruelty Megan Williams suffered.

I'm also struck by the similarity between how Carmen Williams chose to handle her daughter's ordeal at the hands of whites and how Mamie Till-Mobley handled the brutal murder of her son, Emmett Till, in 1955.

Although the news media usually doesn't identify rape victims, Williams told an Associated Press reporter "she wanted people to know what her daughter endured."

It's the same reason Till-Mobley gave when she allowed the beaten, disfigured body of her son to be viewed in an open casket. Till had been killed in Mississippi, and his body brought back to Chicago for the funeral.

Her decision not to hide the horrible way her son died was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement because it drew city folk into the civil rights battle. Until then, the burden of the battle -- the lynchings and killings -- was being carried by their country cousins.

'A horror movie'
Megan Williams was rescued Tuesday when sheriff's deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, went into the rural hills of West Virginia and found the badly abused woman at a mobile home.

Six people -- including a mother and son and a mother and daughter -- have been charged with an assortment of crimes in the case.

Frankie Brewster, 49, was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and giving false information during a felony investigation. Her son, Bobby R. Brewster, 24, who allegedly brought Megan to the mobile home, was also charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assaults during the commission of a felony. Danny J. Combs, 20, was charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding; George A. Messer, 27, was charged with assault and battery; Karen Burton, 46, was charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault; and her daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, was charged with assault and battery.

The accused are being held on $100,000 bonds each.

According to a criminal indictment, the perpetrators raped Megan, doused her with scalding hot water, made her eat dog and rat waste and drink from a toilet. Her captors also stabbed the victim in the leg several times. During the attacks, Megan was repeatedly called a racial slur.

The Logan County, W. Va., sheriff described the crime as "something that would come out of a horror movie."

We've made some progress
At least one of Megan's attackers allegedly told her she was being victimized because she is "black." However, local authorities decided Wednesday not to seek charges for a hate crime. Instead, they'll pursue the state kidnapping charges because those charges carry much heavier penalties and the best chance of a successful prosecution.

State hate crime charges, which carry a sentence of 10 years, could come later, prosecutors said.

Obviously, if hate crime charges are brought in the Williams case, people who were outraged that the Tennessee couple's torture and murder by black suspects was not similarly prosecuted will say it is proof the government is reluctant to prosecute blacks for hate crimes.

But it would be unfair to use Williams' ordeal as a yardstick on race relations in America.

While the Williams case shows there still exist people in this country who harbor a deep-seated hatred of blacks, it also shows we've made some progress.

Mamie Till-Mobley devoted her life to seeking justice for her son. Although the U.S. Justice Department re-opened the case shortly after Till-Mobley passed away, the effort proved too little too late.

But someone tipped off the West Virginia authorities, and saved a young woman's life.

That lifeline wasn't there 50 years ago.

Pics of the perpetrators
http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?o...428098&view=all (http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=5244428098&view=all)
http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v128/221/78/1227570182/s1227570182_30379182_25.jpg
A picture is worth a thousand words.

[spartan]

I think it is obvious why this was not shown in any of the mainstream media. It is because the victim is a black woman which to the mainstream media equates to NOT INTRESTING ENOUGH and means they can not use this story for their racist purposes of demonizing non white people as the victim is a non white black woman herself.

The mainstream media has no problem of course reporting cases of black on white crimes all the time by so called "unruley" black men especially when their victims happen to be blonde haired blue eyed white women.

Never mind the hard conditions that forces alot of these people into crime as a way of survival in a country with a huge and growing gap between rich and poor.

But when it comes to white on black crime well you will be hard pressed to find a mention of it in the racist mainstream media whose only intrest is in demonizing non whites.

Thank you Debora Aro for bringing this horrific story to our attention.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Debora [email protected] 03, 2007 04:32 pm
Williams is the mother of Megan Williams, the black West Virginia woman who was tortured, stabbed, sexually assaulted and treated like an animal by six white offenders during a weeklong captivity.
The bolded part is the answer. After all who wants to hear about the horrendous torture of a black woman at the hands of six white psychopaths when they can get outraged about one white kid getting what's coming to him [see jena six].

Just my tuppence worth.

[Freigemachten]

I heard about it in South Carolina, but I got it in a email from a friend in Nebraska. I think it will be up to the few that know to spread it around, at least bring in to the attention of the general populous, if the media is gonna gloss over it. There is a Facebook group on it for those of you that indulge in such social networking.

haha, I missed the part where you linked the facebook group.

[Le Libérer]

I would have never would have heard about it if I didnt have a facebook account. Thats just fucking sad. I'm so pissed off about this.

[blackstone]

Now that you mention it, i think the first place i heard about it was a few weeks ago because of a myspace bulletin posted by a comrade. Then a few days later, i was invited to that facebook group.

[Le Libérer]

I have emailed a few of the major news channels saying I was going to boycott their channels for not bringing this story to the nation. I wrote Nancy Grace today and asked where is she on this story. Shes all about sensationaizing cases against women and how let down I was she hasnt reported on this yet.

I urge my fellow comrades to do the same. Who knows it may make a difference. A little help from my bro's would be awesome.
Debs

[blackstone]

Whose Nancy Grace and what's her contact info.

[TC]

Googling it seems that this story did get national media attention, but clearly not as much as had it been a white child instead of a black young adult.

I'm not sure if this phenomenon has as much to do with racism against black people exactly as much as it has to do with a type of paternalistic national chauvinism among white people who can easily get whipped up into a frenzy if one of their angelic WASP kids get kidnapped but care less about anyone they can't identify with their property (their own children).




Some other comments about this story though...

The headline "Two mothers refused to hide kids' torture" is patronizing in two ways. First, in that Megan William's is apparently a 20 year old woman, she is not a "kid" and infantalizing victims of sexual violence is further demeaning to them. Secondly it shifts the focus of the article onto her 'heroic' mother, which might very well be a ploy to elicit the same type of paternalistic reaction thats kept Maddy McCain in the british news forever.


Originally posted by Sun

You never get used to the lurid details of a man's inhumanity.

Actually you do, given that the news media seems to delight in providing lurid details involving sex and violence, preferably in the same story.

Now, about the contents, what I think we have to ask is why should anyone be celebrating the fact that a rape/torture/kidnap victim's mother outed her to the media in an apparent fit of political narcissism. There are laws and regulations to keep rape victims' names out of the press for a reason, most people think its humiliating to draw public attention to humiliating experiences. It would be one thing if Megan Williams herself went to the media and let them use her name because she wanted to draw attention to it for political reasons, and it would be one thing if this were a murder victim who couldn't possibly be affected by what was printed about her, but given that it was her mother who used something that happened to someone else to make a media spectacle, I think its rather grotesque for the press to run with it.

I mean, how would you like to be famous for being "tortured, stabbed, sexually assaulted and treated like an animal by six white offenders during a weeklong captivity" and held up as a political icon, not as a person, an activist, or a political leader, but as an object upon which other events played out which people decided were politically relevant? Its acceptable to make Matthew Shepard into a human icon for homophobic hate crimes because he's dead and therefore can't be bothered by having it as his claim to fame, but to do it to someone who is still alive who now has to meet strangers who upon introduction will have way too much information about her seems really exploitive.*

(*in the non-marxist common use sense)

[lacysquid]

I feel that the mother had no intentions to be exploitive, yet revealing her daughters name was a bad move and sort of salts the wounds of dealing with scum such as that family.

I wish the media took some sort of a role in making aware that this thing happened, yet I wish for it to not be blown into a circus exploiting this womans misfortune into TV ratings...yet, this crime needs to be known about. Its sadistic, depraved and just...wrong.

The "missing white woman" syndrome sort of applies here, in the way that since it isnt a white person in peril, so it isnt news to them. I hate stories like this, in which something this horrible goes unnoticed and the media, who can bring these crimes into the public eye dont for the sake of...appeasing an audience or for other irrelevant reasons :angry:

[Le Libérer]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 07:32 am
Whose Nancy Grace and what's her contact info.
Namcy Grace Contact Info (http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5c.html?24)

WHo she is. (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/nancy.grace/)

Sorry I just saw this request.

[counterblast]

I think the reaction on this board would be much different had this woman's husband released her name.

[Cencus]

I think a point is being missed here, the woman was relatively POOR and black.

If the victim was wealthy and black it would have recieved coverage, in my opinion. If the victim had been white, or affluent and black it would have been covered.

[TC]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 08:27 am
I think the reaction on this board would be much different had this woman's husband released her name.
And how specifically? I'd be equally disturbed I think...although in a way I think a spouse has more latitude to act as an agent of their spouse (provided that they're not seperated) than a parent has to act as an agent of their daughter in that spouses are chosen whereas parents are not (though its not appropriate for either for decisions the person in question is capable of making...only relevant with things like emergency medical care and funeral arrangements etc).

I was somewhat disturbed that no one before me in the thread raised the issue that far from being a 'positive' thing as the article seemed to suggest, the mother's clearly took unfair and inappropriate advantage of her daughter. Failing to recognize it I think suggests a similar type of political objectification (treating the person as a useful icon rather than a person with agency and independent interests).

But i'd be interested to hear what difference you think having a husband out her to the media would make.