Facing 41 years to life in prison, Banks accepted a plea deal of six years incarceration and a lifetime as a registered sex offender. Later that day, Gibson told authorities that Banks kidnapped and raped her. Gibson and Banks had a consensual sexual encounter in a stairwell at Long Beach Polytechnic High School.
But it certainly set the stage for future perpetuations of the stereotype.Īt 17-years-old, Brian Banks was a football star bound for the University of Southern California on a full-ride scholarship when his life was uprooted by his classmate Wanetta Gibson. “The Birth of a Nation” is not the only thing that cemented the stereotype about Black men in our country’s collective consciousness. In fact, we embrace the film’s message every time we meet false allegations with unwavering support for the accuser and extreme animosity for the accused before there is a guilty verdict. Although that was over 100 years ago, the film’s message is still ingrained in our society and in our justice system. Again, it was screened at the White House for a viewing by our country’s leaders. “The Birth of a Nation” is a necessary part of American history to discuss because it systematized the idea that Black men are violent rapists. Johnson draws the connection between modern-day attitudes about Black men perpetrating violence to the abhorrent film “The Birth of a Nation.” The film, which was screened at the White House in 1915, celebrates the Ku Klux Klan as heroes after a White woman jumps off a cliff to avoid the risk of being raped by a Black man. It’s because we’ve always been told this is what black men do.” “In each instance, the initial story was believable because of the troubling belief that a Black man is capable of such a thing. “Whether it’s a woman in Michigan falsely claiming that a group of Black men kidnapped, beat and raped her another woman claiming a Black man kidnapped her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons (whom she actually killed) the infamous Amanda Knox accusing a Black man of the heinous murder she was initially convicted of or even a man claiming that Black men stabbed his wife to death (whom he actually killed),” Martenzie Johnson wrote in an article for The Undefeated. It is imperative to know that the allegation is rooted in history to fully understand how ingrained it truly is in our society. While shameful, America embraced the allegation a century ago, and America embraces the allegation today. Why are these false allegations so powerful?įalse allegations -particularly about Black men being rapists -have been reinforced over and over again in our history.
Because Black people represent nearly half of all exonerations, the burden of false allegations falls disproportionately on them. Currently, more than half of all wrongful convictions can be traced back to a false allegation or false testimony. The NRE’s report notes that there is no one explanation for this, but some causes they identified include the inevitable consequences of patterns in crime and punishment and deliberate acts of racism. Considering wrongful sexual assault convictions specifically, false allegations are a leading cause.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic to come from this report is that a Black person incarcerated for sexual assault is three-and-a-half times more likely to be innocent than a White person convicted of sexual assault. Today, we are discussing the staggering fact that innocent Black people are significantly more likely to be wrongfully convicted of sexual assault.Ī March 2017 report by the National Registry of Exonerations titled “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States” found that Black defendants convicted of murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes are more likely than White defendants to later be found innocent. For Black History Month, we will highlight stories and statistics that aim to demonstrate the experience of being Black and wrongfully convicted.