Culture of Excuse
Slave owners beat their slaves, says attorney Randall Vogt. Therefore, it’s “justified” for black men to beat their sons. Vogt is defending Isaac Cortez Bynum, who beat his 2-year-old son to death, and says he’ll use a “post traumatic slave syndrome” defense “in a general way” in Bynum’s Beaverton, Ore., murder trial. “If you are African American and you are living in America, you have been impacted,” says Joy DeGruy-Leary, assistant professor at Portland State University’s Graduate School of Social Work, who originated the slave syndrome theory. The boy’s autopsy showed he had been abused over a lengthy period and had suffered brain injury, a broken neck, broken ribs, and scores of whip marks all over his body. When shown the boy’s autopsy photos, DeGruy-Leary said the injury pattern “falls in the rubric” of “normal” for descendants of slaves. (Portland Oregonian) ...Comforting words for the country’s children.
Available in This is True: Book Collection Vol. 10