Brilliant Color

Brilliant Color has Moved

The Brilliant Color Blog has been incorporated into My new blog at www.thefonteneaufirm.com.  Please look for new posts at that site.

Thank you!

Reflections on the Genarlow Wilson Case

While I was on vacation, I saw that Genarlow Wilson, a young athlete from the Atlanta area in prison for having oral sex with a younger girl was released from prison by the Georgia Supreme Court.  The Wilson case drew national attention because it arose in the aftermath of the Marcus Dixon Case.  Dixon, like Wilson was a talented athlete who was imprisoned for having sex with a younger girl.  The Georgia law at the time required a mandatory sentence when the age difference between consenting participants was more than two years younger that resulted in injury.  Dixon's conviction was overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court shortly before Wilson's case occurred.

The case came to my attention when I was an intern in the Georgia Governor's office as the Executive Counsel's intern.  I worked for Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton who at the time was the Executive Counsel to the Governor.  At the time, the case was just beginning to get publicity because video of the incident between Wilson, his friends and the underage girl had leaked to the media. The case was beginning to snowball and I had to give a report to the Executive Counsel explaining how Wilson's case differed from Dixon's. Wilson, like Dixon, was charged with aggravated child molestation and faced a mandatory sentence.  What made the Wilson case legally interesting was that although the Supreme Court ruled in Dixon's case that the legislature's intent was not to subject those convicted of consensual sex with a younger person to felony molestation charges, the precedent did not extend to cases where the conduct involved non-procreative sex.

Both cases drew national attention because of the perceived injustice facing two young males who had done nothing more than have sex with arguably consenting young women.  There was a lot of talk about their promising futures lost to the harsh realities of being a convicted felon sex offender. However what seems to be missing is the discourse on why society allows young male athletes a pass when they take part in denigrating young women.  In Wilson's case particularly his behavior was deplorable.  He not only took part in encouraging a young girl to perform a sexual act on him and his friends, they also videotaped the episode.  Despite this, many people rushed to his defense and demanded his release.  Maybe the punishment was harsh, but what about the damage he did to the young girl he took advantage of?  What about her future?

Dr. Watson Presumes Too Much: Nobel Prize Winner Quoted making an Insensitive Statement

I stumbled across this article from the Times of London in which quotes James Watson, the scientist who discovered the double helix formation of DNA as saying that blacks are not as intelligent as people of other races. His comments were made when discussing his opinion for the prospects for change in Africa. He is quoted as saying that things were gloomy in the region because

"all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.”

Watson went on to say that: "His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically."

This is not the first time that Watson has made insensitive remarks. In the past, he has been raised the ire of women's groups for his comments about female scientists. It seems that Watson would counter that many of his comments have a basis in science in scientific research. One has to wonder if these statements were made in an effort to help sell his new book. If it isn't, this may just be an example of how seemingly intelligent people can be shockingly ignorant.