Watching The Reckoning: What Diddy’s Story Reveals About America’s Legacy of Sexual Violence - LIVE DISCUSSION TONIGHT!!

First, let me be unequivocally clear: nothing I write in this op-ed is a defense of Sean “Diddy” Combs, nor any person who has committed violence against women, girls, men, or boys. I am entirely against all forms of violence, including sexual assault and physical abuse. What follows is not an attempt to excuse or minimize individual harm—it is an invitation to broaden our lens.

In Chapter Three of my book, Diagnosing Whiteness and Anti-Blackness: White Psychopathology, Collective Psychosis, and Trauma in America, I argue that Black American male behavior—especially in its most harmful expressions—must be understood within the context of the white sociopolitical order that shaped, constrained, and conditioned Black existence. I do not say this merely to indict white men. I say it because Black people, and Black men in particular, have been historically socialized within a world structured by white psychopathy, white legal authority, white cultural norms, and white patriarchal behaviors. We cannot understand Black behavior outside the psychosocial, psycho-political, psycho-legal, and psychocultural conditions imposed upon us.

In other words, what America has allowed men to do—sexually, socially, legally—has always been defined by white male behavior.

The Origins of American Male Sexual Entitlement

In 1275, under English common law, white men codified a rule at Westminster establishing that girls could be married at 12 years old. This legal norm—created centuries before the colonization of North America—traveled with English settlers and became grounding precedent for sexual governance in the colonies. After the founding of the United States, every state adopted this 12-year-old consent and marriage standard.

Between 1800 and 1900, several states went further. Delaware allowed girls as young as seven to be legally married. Under some common-law interpretations, rape—referred to as “ravishment”—was not considered rape if the girl was at least ten.

This legal foundation crystallized a cultural one: that girls’ and women’s bodies existed for male access, male power, and male ownership. That entitlement, forged by white men, became the dominant sexual script for the entire country.

How Slavery Reproduced White Sexual Violence Through Black Bodies

Enslaved African boys and men were forced—under threat of death, torture, or punishment—to rape Black girls and women as part of the slave-breeding economy. Slave narratives and historical accounts, including those curated in Gregory Smithers’ Slave Breeding, make this painfully clear.

One formerly enslaved man recounted how women were rewarded for “breeding quickly.” Another described his father being forced to choose the most “moistest p’oilific”—meaning the youngest, most fertile girls—to rape.

White men also orchestrated, supervised, and joined these assaults.

In the WPA Slave Narratives, multiple accounts describe enslaved men being forced to rape enslaved women while white owners watched. In one Louisiana narrative, an enslaved woman explained: “Master would make the men go in to the gals he wanted ’em to breed with. Sometimes he’d stand right there. Sometimes he’d take his turn too.”

This pattern appears across testimonies in Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia.

These are not isolated incidents—they reflect the foundational architecture of American masculinity.

Modern Echoes of This History

So, we must ask: how have these laws, histories, and psychosocial conditions shaped male proclivities, attitudes, and behaviors in our society today?

Consider Donald Trump’s infamous 2005 Access Hollywood statement: "When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can grab ’em by the pussy.”

During his 2022 deposition in the E. Jean Carroll case, Trump doubled down, telling attorney Roberta Kaplan that men “have been doing this for a million years.” He was not speaking personally—he was articulating a cultural truth he believes to be universal and justified. And where did he learn that?

From the legal, cultural, and historical permissions white men created and normalized.

The Hyper-sexualization of Boys in America

Across my life and research, I have explored how hyper-sexualization operates in male culture. Boys are often sexualized early and encouraged to see sex as a marker of worth, dominance, and maturity. I—like millions of boys—experienced this directly. I was molested repeatedly between ages 5 and 17, by adults and older adolescents. By ages 11 and 12, adult men in my community told me I should have already lost my virginity—and that doing so earlier than my peers would be something to celebrate.

This normalization of premature sexualization is not African. It is not Indigenous. It is not rooted in traditional cultural practices from Ghana, Mali, or other West African regions I examined during my research. In these African societies, consent and marriage were culturally governed by readiness, family discussions, maturity, and community approval—not by the predatory entitlement embedded in European legal doctrine.

Conclusion

Watching Sean Combs: The Reckoning on Netflix compelled me to reflect not only on individual acts of harm, but on the larger ecosystem that produces, shapes, and sustains male power in America—particularly sexualized male power.

If we are going to have an honest conversation about the abuses documented in this docuseries, we must also interrogate:

• What historical forces shaped American masculinity?

• Who defined male entitlement to women’s and girls’ bodies?

• What legacies of white patriarchal law do all men—Black, white, and otherwise—inherit today?

• How do we confront the fact that Black men were coerced into reenacting white sexual violence under slavery, and how did those traumas echo forward?

• How do we break cycles of hyper-sexualization, coercion, and silence in our communities?

• How do we build a future in which none of this—past or present—is normalized?

  
  

If these questions challenge you, unsettle you, or push you to rethink what you thought you knew about gendered violence, race, or American culture, I invite you to go deeper with me.

This op-ed draws from the research in my book, Diagnosing Whiteness & Anti-Blackness: White Psychopathology, Collective Psychosis, and Trauma in America, and in my forthcoming work, The Psychopathy of Whiteness.

Please also feel free to access and take the Diagnosing Whiteness & Anti-Blackness 10-part online course series located under the 'Courses' tab on my website.

We must commit ourselves to understanding these issues not only through outrage, but through context—and to healing the wounds these systems continue to reproduce.

I will be going live about this tonight, Friday and Saturday, December 5th & 6th, at 4:30p.m., Pacific Standard Time (7:30p.m., Eastern Standard Time). If you follow my work, have ready my books, taken trainings and/or classes I have taught, please feel free to click this link if you would like to join the discussion. If you would simply like to watch this live discussion, please click here.

See you tonight and tomorrow!