Column:

Outrage should transcend race

By ChaToyya Sewell

Published Oct. 6, 2009

Let's play the game in which one of these things is not like the other: Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Roman Polanski. If you are unfamiliar with what Roman looks like, I suggest you Google him.

Kanye West is self-centered and rude — this I'm not denying. But he does what he does best. He makes a scene over a 19-year-old woman who lets it go immediately after the night. Oh wait, Kanye is black and this woman is the blonde hair, blue-eyed American sweetheart. Celebrities are up in a rage about it. Twitter, blogs and talk shows are overflowing with people calling Kanye a horrible person.

Polanski, an admittedly brilliant director, drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977 after pretending to be photographing her for French Vogue. There was a trial and he pled guilty and he fled into the arms of European society, where he continued to direct and win major awards for his films, such as "The Pianist."

In 2009, he was arrested trying to enter Switzerland through the Zurich airport. He is awaiting extradition proceedings. Did the celebrity world ring with celebration? Were outrages similar to those against Kanye proclaimed? No, silence reigned. No, better than silence, defenses quietly crept into conversation.

On the feminist blog ShakespearesSister, there is posted a comprehensive list of all the celebrities who signed the “Free Roman Polanski” petition. Read at your own peril. As a film lover and anti-rape activist, the petition slashed off half the vehicles on my Netflix list.

The reverse petition to that is looking rather lacking. When Sherri Shepherd (i.e. that black woman on "The View" who is not Whoopi Goldberg) is the most public person in your camp making sense, well then, you get the picture. It should be noted though that Neil Gaiman did sign the anti-free Roman Polanski petition and this is the second time the author appears in this column in a positive light because clearly he is great.

I totally understand the arguments made by Polanski apologists. Yes, he went through a traumatic time — the death of his wife Sharon Tate and unborn child at the hands of the Manson Family — as with most abusers who have also experienced trauma. Yes, I know resources could be spent elsewhere, except the resources have not been particularly spent.

For the past 33 years, the world has been able to keep pretty good tabs on the whereabouts of Polanski. He has entered nations that have extraditions with us, but there has been no huge manhunt. As well, not only did he flee, he has flaunted the justice system with his public actions for years.

And yes, I know Polanski is a brilliant filmmaker, one of my favorites. This is not mutually exclusive. One is able to be a brilliant filmmaker and a person capable of horrible actions who raped a young woman.

History is littered with talented assholes. Walk around this university, and I'm sure you'll find several talented assholes.

So to return once more to my analogy, let's imagine the situations flipped. Kanye has been on the run for 33 years after raping a 13-year-old girl and Roman Polanski stole the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards — bear with me, this analogy works. Now imagine the outrage, transferred to Kanye. This has been your lesson of white privilege for the day.