Three unnamed robbers from Créteil #racist

Three unnamed robbers from Créteil #racist france24.com

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Thursday condemned the brutal attack on a young couple in the Parisian suburb of Creteil, and highlighted the anti-Semitic nature of the incident in which a 19-year-old woman was raped.

The attack took place on Monday, when a 21-year-old man and his girlfriend were sitting down to lunch in their apartment. Three masked and armed assailants entered the home and said, “You Jews, you have money,” as they tied the couple down, according to the family’s lawyer.

The attackers raped the young woman, before stealing bank cards, jewelry and mobile phones, a source familiar with the case told the AFP news agency.

“The horror in Creteil is proof that the fight against anti-Semitism is an everyday struggle. My support [goes out to] the family,” Valls said on Twitter on Thursday morning.

Earlier, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement that the anti-Semitic nature of the incident seemed to have been confirmed by investigators.

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19 comments

old comment by Hasan Prishtina

@ Warren McIntosh

According to the Irish Independent, one of the victims said “They said they knew we had cash in the flat because Jews have money and they never keep it in the bank’,” Jonathan told French radio. “They said, over and over, We’re robbing you and we are attacking Jews at the same time the two things in one’.”

I take that had the victims been black, and had the robbers said "blacks are too stupid to put their money in banks, you must have it lying around here," you believe that there would also be no racial element involved. If robbing people on the grounds of racial stereotypes is not sufficiently racist for you I very much doubt that "We're robbing you and attacking Jews at the same time - the two things in one" will be any more convincing. The fact that this has been treated as an anti-Semitic attack by the French authorities from the president down and is part of a 91% increase in anti-Semitic attacks in France in the past year might also seem to be of little importance.

old comment by SpukiKitty

These bigots aren't just robbers, their rapists, too!

It's also sad when the "Buddy System" of being with a significant other can't protect you.

A man and woman in an apartment...home invasion, robbery, rape!

A man & woman walk down the street in India...more rape.

You'd think rapists would avoid targeting a woman if a man's around but no.....

If they just wanted money, why rape? Did they make things equal & clobber the guy, too?

I hope they catch these bastards!

And we as women need to learn to fight back. We can't expect the men in our lives to protect us & be a deterant.

We need to tap in to our Shakti. A woman can easily out-fight a man...but Patriarchy stripped her of that ability! I KNOW that long ago, women faced down sabre-tooth cats to protect her young!

If a man tried to rape me, I would bite his penis.

That's why AdiShakti, in her wisdom, gave males external genitalia....for his greater physical strength is meaningless when woman is mistress over him by the power of the crotch squeeze!!!

Ladies, just hurt his genitals. Bite then, hit them, crush them! It's so easy! If every rape survivor did that, we'd have a lot less successful rapes! You don't need brawn. Just destroy his guy-bits!

Women have been programmed for centuries with the lie that men are so infinitely stronger that there's no way she could win a fight! It's a lie! He can't be THAT much stronger! He's just another human being, not a charging rhino! There's women out there being raped/beaten/murdered by skinny guys of a similar size, height & weight to her! How much stronger could that noodle boy be?

Women's physical weakness & inability to fight back is mostly psychosomatic. True, males are generally physically stronger...but that's meaningless! Look at female bears putting the big hurt on bigger, brawnier male bears!

There's a whole bunch of factors, not just physical brawn!

Ladies, if he attacks you....go for the penis/nuts area! DAMN!

Of course, this couple was tied down and probably assumed it was just a robbery so they complied so they wouldn't get hurt.

If this was just I robbery, I wouldn't be so steamed.

Rapists rape because of "Power". However, if one feels they have to rape in order to feel powerful then they have no power.

YA HEAR THAT, RAPISTS, EVERY TIME YOU RAPE...YOU ARE WEAKER & MORE POWERLESS.

old comment by SpukiKitty

I'M GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING NOW THAT I HOPE WON'T BE MISCONSTRUED AS "VICTIM-BLAMING". PLEASE HEAR ME OUT....

There's an idea that something's ability to hurt you is dependent upon how much you let it hurt you.

Y'know? If a victim of rape can't defend themselves, maybe they should at least build up a psychological defense. This psychological defense will prevent the assault from being a psychologically-damaging thing....to one to be just mad instead of becoming a PTSD case.

* Rape is mainly a VIOLENT assault...like getting beat-up...except sex is involved.

* The real aim is to damage the person's psyche.

* People usually don't feel mentally broken after getting clobbered (usually they're just mad). They do when they are raped.

* It is possible for someone who overpowers your body to not overpower your soul!

My concept is "Mental Self-Defense". This is the last resort when preventative & physical defense measures have failed and the person (male or female) ends up raped. This will make it so that recovery is swift and you regain who you were before the rape.

* Know that, the rapist will never own your body. A person beating you up doesn't own your body...why should a rapist?

* Rapists are weak. They are lesser than you! With each thrust they become dumber & weaker.

* Part of what makes rape so horrifying is SHAME. There's nothing to be ashamed of! You're clean, pure & innocent. The rapist is the filthy dirty one full of shame.

* Know that no matter what this dumb, weak nimrod does to your body, he/she has no real power over you. Their actions are basically saying "I'm a weak pitiful laughingstock! Look at how I exercise my weakness and powerlessness at you! Laugh at me! I'm an object to shame!"

I confess that I've never been raped. However, I have been groped. Oddly enough, I never let the groping bother me.
It was just an annoyance & I thought "What a dork!". That's why I came up with this above bunch of statements.

Keep in mind that I am not "victim-blaming".
I also feel that it's important to get rid of rape culture.
However, I feel it goes both ways.
Teach folks not to rape & destroy rape culture AND teach folks self-defense (both physical & mental).
No! This does not mean that I think women should worry about their fashion sense or drinking! Women should be FREE!

Same goes for bullying.
We need to combat & punish bullies & teach that bullying is wrong...but the bullied also need to learn coping skills in the mean time.
I've been bullied a lot. However, late in my school days (actually the last day of final exams before graduating) I came upon the concept of "Just laugh at them". They expect you to get mad & hurt...but if you laugh at them instead, they'll get miffed!
In my case, it worked! I thought to myself, "Why didn't I think of this sooner? My entire Junior & Senior High years could have been awesome instead of Hell!".

I hope I didn't outrage anyone.

old comment by Hasan Prishtina

@ Warren McIntosh

The choice of victim in robbery you describe might just as well be attributed to the victim's age as his color. Furthermore, there's no evidence in this instance that the perpetrator would express any racist beliefs to the victim. In the case described, even in the original post, the victims are young and the racial stereotypes are expressed by the perpetrators. It's hard to see what's not racist about it.

Furthermore, the thing about racism and sexism is that they have victims, so why in such cases does the perception of the victim about whether this was racist not seem to matter to you?

@ SpukiKitty

You are right that rape is about power rather than sex. It is about intimidation, dishonoring and leaving the victim with permanent psychological, and maybe physical, wounds. It was used as a weapon of war, especially by the Serb soldiers, in Bosnia and Kosovo, and it is not unreasonable to suspect that this is how it was used here.

old comment by SpukiKitty

@Hasan Prishtina

What do you think of my second post? I hope I didn't say something that crossed the line or might be misconstrued as insensitive. For anyone on here who's a survivor of rape & who may see it that way, I apologize. I'll remove my second post ASAP.

The second post was just a thought I had on how to empower a person who's attacked, even if the assault is a success. It's not about victim-blaming. Rather, it was meant to make it so that the attack doesn't leave massive permanent scars. I was sort of expressing something about Dharmic teachings on detachment - detachment to even painful experiences.

Concerning Warren McIntosh; I agree that something's up with this guy.

Finally, what's with all the Anti-Semitism in France, lately? They have absolutely no reason to even want to think that way. Why would all that Wingnuttery even have such traction, there? Isn't France a Progressive, forward-thinking nation?

old comment by SpukiKitty

@Hasan Prishtina

So are you saying the assailants might have been young Muslims?

On top of that, why move to a country that you feel completely alienated from? Wouldn't you at least try to fit in & learn about the society?

This is awful no matter what. Someone needs to reach out to the Muslim youth and help them relate to the society. A lot of these wingnutty radical groups get them, hence all the terrorism & hate crimes. There needs to be progressive/liberal outreaches that will get them first, before the nuts do. Same goes for White Supremacists, Black Supremacists and others.

Reach disaffected youth....before the Fascists/Theocratic kooks do.

I hope this couple recovers and I pray the young woman's mental scars heal & fade.

old comment by Hasan Prishtina

@ SpukiKitty

The Irish Independent report I linked to said that the perpetrators were of African and North African origin and so are very likely to have been Muslim. In a place like Creteil, a suburb which is mostly urban projects, this is not surprising.

Many of the people of their age were born in France from parents who came from West and North Africa. Many of them came from villages and had very little in the way of education. Everyday racism is still pretty strong in France and there is a subculture that believes that the country where these young people live, which they feel rejects them, has nothing to offer them.

For me, one of the worrying side-effects of this is the reluctance of many on the European left to acknowledge that there is a problem, perhaps feeling that white imperialism is to blame and that it would be racist to condemn the actions of such people for what they are.

This is not a phenomenon confined to France or to Muslims and seems to affect second-generation immigrants in particular. If you think back to the New York of the 1860s, you have the Irish gangs that terrorized the city. In the 1920s, their place was taken by Italian and Jewish thugs. In their place came Puerto Ricans and African Americans after the Great Migration. Now we have Russians and, I'm sorry to say, Albanians. In my part of the world, we have problems with the children of Hmong immigrants - and a more extreme difference between Hmong and American societies is difficult to imagine.

In Europe, however, a lot of young Muslims have turned towards Islamism. Thousands have gone to Syria to fight for IS and Al Qa'eda.