Kamala Harris is the latest high-profile Democrat to meet with and pay homage to Jacob Blake and his family. After speaking with them for an hour, Harris gushed to reporters that Blake Sr., known for ranting about “Jews” and “crackers” on social media, and Blake Jr., accused of drunkenly abusing a woman over the course of several years before finally breaking into her house and raping her, are “incredible.”
Blake family attorney Benjamin Crump, a man for whom the term “ambulance chaser” was invented, issued a press release after the visit, providing more details about the kumbaya session. According to Crump: “Senator Harris had an inspirational and uplifting one-hour visit with Jacob Blake, Jr. and his family today. She spoke individually with each family member about how they were handling the trauma and urged them to take care of their physical and mental health. In a moving moment, Jacob Jr. told Sen. Harris that he was proud of her, and the senator told Jacob that she was also proud of him and how he is working through his pain.”
Now would be a good time to remind ourselves why Blake Jr. finds himself in a position where he must “work through his pain.” A few months ago, a sobbing and trembling woman called 911 to report that Jacob Blake had allegedly broken into her home early in the morning, digitally raped her, humiliated her, then stolen her debit card and vehicle. On the day of the shooting, police say, Blake had returned to his alleged victim’s house with a knife, taken her keys, and then actively resisted arrest when police arrived in response to the woman’s emergency call. This is the man that apparently swells Kamala Harris with pride.
She is not alone. Joe Biden had his own state visit with the royal family of Kenosha and spoke emotionally about the resilience, hope, and optimism of the accused rapist and serial abuser. The media, of course, has played a crucial role in Blake’s canonization. On Monday, the New York Times published a lengthy article about the suspected rapist’s medical challenges, declaring that Blake can now be the “rare survivor” to “tell his own story.” It takes the article’s author, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, about 30 sentences to finally mention the rape charge, and then as vaguely as possible. Bogel-Burroughs writes only that “Mr. Blake pleaded not guilty on Friday to three domestic charges against him, including a sexual assault count.”
No mention of the specific details of the charge, which are harrowing and horrifying. And no mention of the knife allegedly in Blake’s possession on the day of the shooting. No mention that he assaulted the police officers who came to the aid of his alleged victim. The alleged victim herself gets only one half-sentence of acknowledgement. She is described as “the woman who reported the assault.” And that’s the end of it. We are told nothing of her condition, how she feels, how she’s holding up, how she’s coping with seeing millionaire athletes and celebrities rally around and celebrate the man who she says raped, abused, and terrorized her. The New York Times does not consider her physical or emotional state relevant. And on that point, Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Democrats seem to agree.
This is quite interesting, coming from the same people who in very recent history have spoken so passionately about the need to “amplify the voices of sexual violence survivors.” Speaking of which, the leaders of #MeToo just last week launched something called the “survivor’s agenda” which is supposed to “amplify the voices of sexual violence survivors.” In a video announcing the new initiative, the #MeToo warriors said that though they’ve made “incredible strides” and had some “amazing wins,” there is still much that must be done to ensure that society “takes survivors seriously” and that “all survivors are heard.”
We’ve always known that exceptions are made to this “amplify their voices” thing whenever a high-profile Democrat politician is accused. But over the past few months we’ve learned that the exempt list also includes women who are allegedly brutalized by men who later die or are injured in police custody — provided, of course, that the circumstances (including the races of those involved) are politically useful to groups like BLM.
George Floyd was convicted of forcing his way into a woman’s home, shoving a gun into her stomach, and robbing her. Jacob Blake is credibly accused of the brutal crimes already described. These victims’ voices are far from “amplified.” On the contrary, the very existence of these women is covered up, buried, ignored. The champions of #MeToo won’t “say their names” or even acknowledge them in passing. They are shoved to the side and trampled over in the rush to lionize their abusers.
There are real consequences to this. First of all, the continued emotional trauma suffered by women who must now live in a country that hails their abusers as heroes is real. Also, will the next woman confronted by a man she knows from experience to be violent and volatile hesitate to call 911, fearing that that he’ll get himself shot and she’ll be blamed for it while society wails in grief over the tragic fate of her abuser? What if Blake’s alleged victim had made that calculation? What if she had not called the police? Would he have done something terrible to her or the children? We can’t know the answer to that question. But we do know that if things had played out that way, BLM would have nothing to say. MeToo would remain quiet. The Left and Democrats like Biden and Harris would yawn and continue along their way. The woman in the Jacob Blake case — the woman who is still just “the woman,” nameless — is not the kind of victim that any of these groups care about. That’s because they don’t really care about women at all.