republican presidential candidate herman cain has unequivocally denied the mounting sexual harassment allegations against him, saying, "they simply didn't happen." cain has vowed not to withdraw his candidacy from the race. some polls have shown his numbers have slipped considerably since five women have accused him of sexual harassment. cain & mitt romney were front-runners a few weeks ago.
last week cain denied the claims of his latest accuser, sharon bialek, who said the two were out to dinner because she'd hoped cain could help her find employment. she said cain put his hands underneath her dress, reached for her genitals & put her head toward his crotch. bialek said she wanted to give a face & a voice to the women who are fearful of speaking out, although two admittedly cannot speak publicly due to confidentiality papers they reportedly signed.
bialek was accompanied at a press conference by controversial defense attorney gloria allred. cain appeared on abc's 'jimmy kimmel live' the same evening. when asked by kimmel if he'd consider hiring allred as his attorney cain quipped, "you almost made me say something that my handlers say you should not say. let me put it to you this way: i can't think of anything that i would hire her to do, ok? i can't think of a thing."
also last week, another woman, karen kraushaar, confirmed publicly for the first time she had accused cain of sexual harassment. kraushaar's initial allegations came when they both worked for the national restaurant association in the 1990s. cain has denied these & all other allegations from the women as "simply false."
dahlia lithwick, senior editor at slate, told amy goodwin on democracy now, "i think this goes to these archetypes, that if you fail everything else, just accuse women of being insane, accuse them of being trampy, accuse them of being hysterics. i think that that's a little bit of what you're hearing here...i find it fascinating that you never hear these accusations turned against male accusers of misconduct. these are really, really shakespearean ideas of women as emotional & unhinged."
i am
- mark j. tuggle
- harlem, usa
- same-gender-loving contemporary descendant of enslaved africans. community activist, feminist, health educator, independent filmmaker, mentor, playwright, poet & spiritual being. featured at, in & on africana.com, afrikan poetry theatre, angel herald, bejata dot com, bet tonight with tavis smiley, blacklight online, black noir, brooklyn moon cafe, gmhc's barbershop, klmo-fm, lgbt community services center, longmoor productions, nuyorican poets cafe, our corner, poz, pulse, rolling out new york, rush arts gallery, saint veronica's church, schomburg center for research in black culture, sexplorations, the citizen, the new york times, the soundz bar, the trenton times, the village voice, upn news, uzuri, venus, vibe, wbai-fm, wnyc-fm & wqht-fm. volunteered with adodi, bailey house, inc., black men's xchange-new york, colorofchange.org, drug policy alliance, east harlem tutorial program, imagenation film & music festival, presente.org, save darfur coalition, the enough project, the osborne association, the sledge group & your black world. worked on films with maurice jamal & heather murphy. writing student of phil bertelsen & ed bullins. mjt975@msn.com.
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