A Badge, Uniform, and Race: It does not correlate

A former Oklahoma City Police Officer was convicted last night of raping and sexually victimizing eight women on his police beat in a minority, low-income neighborhood. Daniel Holtzclaw, who turned 29 Thursday, sobbed as the verdict was read out loud. Jurors convicted him on 18 counts involving eight of the 13 women who had openly accused him; the jury acquitted him on other 18 counts. Holtzclaw was found guilty on four counts of first-degree rape, one count of second-degree rape, six counts of sexual battery, four counts of forcible sodomy, and three counts of procuring lewd acts for which has led him to approximately 263 years of life in prison. It is believed that Holtzclaw used his race and higher authorative figure to reason his actions and according to the victims themselves, he made his "whiteness" very clear in order to ridicule and demean them for he used racial slurs and commanding words that made his racial background clear to his victims. He wanted them to know he was white and that his badge placed him among a privileged class to which these women did not and could not belong; it meant he could subjugate them with all manner of defilements with impunity. From my perspective, despite how unfortunate the situation is, it is incredibly relieving to see our jury strategically evaluate and find a justifiable verdict, NOT allowing for this man to get away with it simply because of his image. This case was also a winning situation in terms of bringing in woman empowerment and making it affirmative that women's lives matter. All too often, how much justice one recieves depends largely on the social strictures of wealth and race. In that regard, even a predator like Holtzclaw perhaps believed he was able to get away for the viscious acts that he committed. Based on his own words, he made it evident that he embraced some of his most unfortunate aspects of that privilege. He bought into and used that sense of supremacy to sexually violate his victims and the oath he swore to serve and protect them. What do you think based on this case? Do you believe Holtzclaw pursued these acts and thought he would get away with them based on the color of his skin and his job? Do you agree that this case was also celebratory in the way our jury processed it?