You ask and you receive:
A Refresher, The Crash clip [video width="560" height="315" id="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtvbEtPIGiA" type="youtube"]
So I usually wouldn’t take the time to discuss a three-year old movie in this forum (blogs are all about discussing current events, no?). I don’t care that it won an Oscar. It’s an old film. But alas, the topic of that pivotal Crash scene when Terrence Howard does nothing as his onscreen wife, played by Thandie Newton, is molested in front him by the cop keeps coming up in conversations. Yes, still. I’ve discussed it a thousand-million-hundred times with bunches of different people from varied Black backgrounds and while no group can agree on what should have been done, each person in every grouping universally agrees/claims that what was done (or rather not done), was not what they would do. ‘Dude should have done something’ is always the refrain I hear and from there ideas are tossed out as to exactly what he should have done beyond just stand there.
Anything TH did would have likely gotten him beat or shot, perhaps killed, and at the very least got him arrested. And while I, as a black woman, don’t want be the cause of another Black man in The System, certainly not the impetus for yet another Black man killed or beaten by cops, I also don’t want to be married to a man who won’t defend me at all costs. Yes, Thandie mouthed off and should have shut the fuck up. Yes, she should have stayed in the damn car. But she didn't. As a result, she 1) got screamed on by another man-cop or not– in front of her so-called man (I'll give TH a pass for not reacting to that. She had it coming); 2) The cop snatched her up (note: she tried to resist, to fight back and couldn't defend herself); 3) she got shoved up against the truck IN FRONT OF HER SO CALLED MAN; and 4) the man, cop or not, palms her ass; and 5) THEN he feels her up IN FRONT OF HER SO CALLED MAN.
She is increasingly humiliated throughout the ordeal and when she finally looks to her just standing there husband to help, he does NOTHING. In fact, he looks away.
I’m not usually one of those people who supports noble martyrdom and legend-making displays of male honor. In all the so-called snitch conversations re: TIs bodyguard, I’m always the one arguing 'tis better to be a free ‘’snitch'’ than an incarcerated stand-up guy. But when it comes to defending your woman, especially your wife, from a physical threat by another man, I expect a man to fall on the sword– literally, metaphorically, figuratively, whatever. I don’t think as a woman I am rendered unable to protect myself because a man is present. The onus is on me to protect me. But for whatever reason I try to and God forbid fail as Thandie did in that scene, I fully expect my man (or any male that I know that is present) to help me. Any male not willing to do so doesn’t deserve the honor of calling any woman his own or even calling himself a man.
Discuss…