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criminalxmindsWhat do you make of Criminal Minds's repeated assertions that the serial killer in question have to be in the same race as that of his(/her) victims, to the point of completely ignoring other possibilities, like in "Fear and Loathing"? I haven't seen all the episodes yet (is there one or more that featured a cross racial serial sex killer?)
Trigger Warning: real cases of sexual assault and murder being discussed, also colonialism
I've always thought that it was outdated, and very dangerous, considering the reality of colonialism and the fetishization of minority women as prey*. In show, a majority of the victims are white, but IRL, there is a serial killer on the Highway of Tears preying predominantly on Aboriginal women, and gods, if the police are sticking to the same-race-serial-killer theory...they are going to miss Jeffrey Dahmer.
I think this was in "There's No Place Like Home" (or another episode that reaired recently), Spencer quoted Jeffrey Dahmer as a part of his long argument about how serial killers usually hunt within their own race (Dahmer being included because he hunted within his own orientation). Ummmmmm, Jeffrey Dahmer is pretty significant in that a LOT of Dahmer's victims were men of colour while he himself was white! It could be a matter of geographic availability - or, Easier Victim - one time, a 13 yr old Asian boy almost got away from him, but the police chose to believe the blond Dahmer's word that 13 was actually 18 and he was Dahmer's boyfriends being high, Dahmer's words over the 13 yr old Asian boy AND two black women who keep trying to get the police to intervene (it ends with that kid being killed right after the police left).
Then there is Gary Heidnik, who was white, but all the women he kept as captives in his basement were African American.
Robert Pickton, the Vancouver pig farmer, many of his victims were also aboriginal women even though he himself was white.
Race Flip example: Carlton Gray - The Columbus, Georgia Stocking Strangler, Gray was a young black man who targeted elderly white women.
.....and I wish I could find the article I read a while ago, which stipulates that any assumption that the perp will be the same race as the victim is an outdated assumption due to the retirement of segregation and increased population density - mainly that a prevalence of same-race (and class) predation was a matter of availability.
It just bothers me, that CM, which was otherwise progressive in so many ways, in shattering myths and giving agency and voice to female victims, to the homeless, prostitutes, geeks and queers, would be well, missing out on this one.
Overall, I'll really like more episodes where the victims are marginalized people please - especially women of colour, but only if we are written with as much agency as the other female victims. CM got me hooked on episode one with the chained up woman who kicked at her captor.
* when fetish isn't harmless:
- For Asian women, 'fetish' is less than benign
BY SALLIE KIM, SHANNON STOCKDALE
Thursday, April 14, 2005
" For example, in 2000, two Japanese college women were abducted, raped, videotaped and told that if they told anybody what had happened, the videotapes would be sent to their fathers. The three white assailants admitted targeting Asian women precisely because they had a sexual fetish for "submissive" Asian women, but also because they believed that this same submissiveness and cultural shame would prevent the women from reporting the assaults. "
* Missing Aboriginal Women prompt UN letter
Trigger Warning: real cases of sexual assault and murder being discussed, also colonialism
I've always thought that it was outdated, and very dangerous, considering the reality of colonialism and the fetishization of minority women as prey*. In show, a majority of the victims are white, but IRL, there is a serial killer on the Highway of Tears preying predominantly on Aboriginal women, and gods, if the police are sticking to the same-race-serial-killer theory...they are going to miss Jeffrey Dahmer.
I think this was in "There's No Place Like Home" (or another episode that reaired recently), Spencer quoted Jeffrey Dahmer as a part of his long argument about how serial killers usually hunt within their own race (Dahmer being included because he hunted within his own orientation). Ummmmmm, Jeffrey Dahmer is pretty significant in that a LOT of Dahmer's victims were men of colour while he himself was white! It could be a matter of geographic availability - or, Easier Victim - one time, a 13 yr old Asian boy almost got away from him, but the police chose to believe the blond Dahmer's word that 13 was actually 18 and he was Dahmer's boyfriends being high, Dahmer's words over the 13 yr old Asian boy AND two black women who keep trying to get the police to intervene (it ends with that kid being killed right after the police left).
Then there is Gary Heidnik, who was white, but all the women he kept as captives in his basement were African American.
Robert Pickton, the Vancouver pig farmer, many of his victims were also aboriginal women even though he himself was white.
Race Flip example: Carlton Gray - The Columbus, Georgia Stocking Strangler, Gray was a young black man who targeted elderly white women.
.....and I wish I could find the article I read a while ago, which stipulates that any assumption that the perp will be the same race as the victim is an outdated assumption due to the retirement of segregation and increased population density - mainly that a prevalence of same-race (and class) predation was a matter of availability.
It just bothers me, that CM, which was otherwise progressive in so many ways, in shattering myths and giving agency and voice to female victims, to the homeless, prostitutes, geeks and queers, would be well, missing out on this one.
Overall, I'll really like more episodes where the victims are marginalized people please - especially women of colour, but only if we are written with as much agency as the other female victims. CM got me hooked on episode one with the chained up woman who kicked at her captor.
* when fetish isn't harmless:
- For Asian women, 'fetish' is less than benign
BY SALLIE KIM, SHANNON STOCKDALE
Thursday, April 14, 2005
" For example, in 2000, two Japanese college women were abducted, raped, videotaped and told that if they told anybody what had happened, the videotapes would be sent to their fathers. The three white assailants admitted targeting Asian women precisely because they had a sexual fetish for "submissive" Asian women, but also because they believed that this same submissiveness and cultural shame would prevent the women from reporting the assaults. "
* Missing Aboriginal Women prompt UN letter
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Date: Dec. 20th, 2011 09:15 pm (UTC)analysis
Date: Dec. 20th, 2011 09:36 pm (UTC)Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding!
Especially since, damn, even though it SHOULDN'T, TV shows affect the way people think about things, and law enforcement are people too. I fucking LOVE how CM disprove and smack down assumptions about prostitutes and rape victims, and I would like to see that extended more towards women who aren't white.
...and um, speaking as one woman who isn't white and does not live a charmed sheltered life, there have been many situations where I have felt unsafe, and the people who targeted me were not all Chinese like me, in fact, I think I only remember being groped by someone who was Chinese ONCE - because I don't tend to hang around predominantly Chinese areas (supporting that it's not race (except when it is, familiarity/fetish), it's availability,).
It would suck if a certain somewhat douchey ex of mine (imma saying he has major anger issues, he badmouthed every single one of his ex, he was paranoid that an ex of his was watching him and pointed him out to me and to me it looked like the ex couldn't even shim him, he felt entitled to my time and body, he hold me to 'promises' that I never made and get scary angry when I don't), who happens to be white, were to be harmful to me but the police don't suspect HIM because hey he's not a member of the Chinese community!