Perceptions of Interracial and Intra-Racial Date Rape
Rape is a crime that is not regularly reported in the United States and out of the 14 to 25 percent of women who are raped; only one tenth to a half of those actually reports the incident to law enforcement. That apprehensiveness in reporting rape can be accredited to some rape myths existing in the United States and those who agree with those myths are more apt to not believe the victim and place the responsibility of the attack on the victim instead of the perpetrator.
One of those myths is the idea that most rapes are committed by strangers who threaten bodily harm to the victim with some weapon. These circumstances represent less than 25 percent of all cases of rape and the other 75 percent happen between acquaintances in a familiar environment with no weapon at all. Another myth asserts that a characteristic rape happens between an African American male and a white female victim. This stems from history of slavery when the rape of a black female slave by a white master was ignored and relations of a white woman with a black male, even if it was not rape, brought a grave penalty and even death to the black male. The remnants of those views remain in today’s society giving much harsher punishments to black males accused of raping a white female even though more than 90 percent of cases of rape occur between people of the same race instead of the myth of rampant interracial rape. Unfortunately, this myth impacts the responses to accusations of rape where a white female accusing a black male of rape is much more apt to be believed than when they accuse a white male and where black women are less likely to be believed of being raped irrespective of the race of the accused rapist.
The legal system is influenced by some of those myths of rape where the victims feels they will be accused, hassled and even made to feel responsible for the event if they report the rape therefore being victimized even more. The reluctance of reporting rape holds most for black
One of those myths is the idea that most rapes are committed by strangers who threaten bodily harm to the victim with some weapon. These circumstances represent less than 25 percent of all cases of rape and the other 75 percent happen between acquaintances in a familiar environment with no weapon at all. Another myth asserts that a characteristic rape happens between an African American male and a white female victim. This stems from history of slavery when the rape of a black female slave by a white master was ignored and relations of a white woman with a black male, even if it was not rape, brought a grave penalty and even death to the black male. The remnants of those views remain in today’s society giving much harsher punishments to black males accused of raping a white female even though more than 90 percent of cases of rape occur between people of the same race instead of the myth of rampant interracial rape. Unfortunately, this myth impacts the responses to accusations of rape where a white female accusing a black male of rape is much more apt to be believed than when they accuse a white male and where black women are less likely to be believed of being raped irrespective of the race of the accused rapist.
The legal system is influenced by some of those myths of rape where the victims feels they will be accused, hassled and even made to feel responsible for the event if they report the rape therefore being victimized even more. The reluctance of reporting rape holds most for black