Ginia Bellafonte just five years ago was beside herself at how Caucasian the line-up of Rockettes dancers was, calling the performance she attended during the Christmas season “an eerie celebration of whiteness.” (‘Tis the season!)
But in a painfully obtuse article this week, the New York Times columnist found nothing remarkable about the obvious racial pattern among a raft of women randomly sucker-punched by men on the streets of her own city. Namely, that the assailants are all black.
That overt detail was evidently beside the point to Bellafonte, who was instead preoccupied this time not with the race of the offenders, but with the sex of the victims.
“Like all conversations about crime in New York City these days,” wrote Bellafonte, “the one taking hold around these attacks over the past month has quickly defaulted to questions about mental illness and whether the men walking around impulsively hitting women in the face were merely disturbed — as if it warranted no consideration that a psychological malady might find such brute expression in an antagonism directed at women.”
The spate of attacks in recent weeks involves unsuspecting women who, out of nowhere and in broad daylight, suffers a blow to their heads by strange men passing by. It’s true this makes the matter especially appalling. But if the consistency in the sex attacked is useful, wouldn’t it be helpful to note other similarities?
As Bellafonte noted in her column, two arrests have been made in relation to the sucker-punch episodes,
