This episode of Law and Order SVU began in Central Park as the SVU team was attempting to catch a serial groper. They eventually came across a man under a heavy influence of drugs streaking through the park. The team arrested him and admitted him into a psychiatric hospital for recovery and surveillance. Within the first hours he was there, the streaking perpetrator witnessed a rape in one of the patient’s rooms. He made the claim to the SVU team but they were skeptical of the legitimacy of this claim, since the streaking perpetrator was in no healthy mindset and because no one came forward about being raped. Gia, the patient who resided in the room that the streaking perpetrator had witnessed the rape, denied being raped because she claimed no one would believe her if she was. The team tried desperately to get to the bottom of this case but it was difficult finding a suspect for a rape that no one admitted to. The team went through a series of suspects and questioned a number of different people, including Charles Lee, an African American security guard at the psychiatric hospital. After questioning all of the suspected persons and persons of interest, the team finally came to the conclusion that the rapist was Gia’s uncle who had been raping her since she was 14 years old. She had claimed rape before but no one believed her, causing her to go crazy, and she figured she would not be able to claim rape since no one would believe her.
Although it is a problematic story for Gia, as she is placed in a mental institute for being a lifelong victim of rape that is completely disregarded, she is not the focus of this blog post. I will focus on Charles Lee, the security guard who was on duty while Gia’s rape took place.
It is interesting that a security guard was immediately a suspect for this crime when no other security guard in the building was treated like a suspect. After another patient led the team to Charles Lee, the team questions Charles Lee. He pleads,
“You know me, fin.”
And Detective Tutuola responds,
“Not enough to trust you.”
Even though Charles Lee was familiar with the detectives and on the side of the law, he was still targeted as a suspect. Not only are there not many African Americans represented in this episode besides Charles Lee, Lee was represented in a negative way. However, the creators of the show may have properly represented African Americans in Law enforcement. According to the New York Times article “The Race Gap in America’s Police Departments,” African American representation in police departments is disproportionate to the population of civilians in almost every American metropolis, including New York City. The representation of African Americans in the police and law enforcement departments might be accurately represented by the lack of diversity in this episode of Law and Order SVU.
The next topic of contention is how Charles Lee was being represented. Another issue is the way that Charles Lee was not even given a chance to be trusted to appropriately handle the situation with Gia and in fact was seen as a suspect automatically. Charles Lee is perhaps portray as a black image in the white mind, immediately to blame and underrepresented because of the blame associated with the history of African Americans. As I have mentioned before in previous blog posts, Hollywood and Law and Order SVU are aiming to maximize their profits from entertainment. The representation in entertainment, particularly in the mainstream, has no intention of dismantling the years of racism and African American misrepresentation but in fact, does a great job at erasing the history all together. When the viewers don’t take the time to think about how Charles Lee was represented, they get to experience yet another black image in the white mind.
Source:
Ashkenas, Jeremy; Park, Haeyoun. "The Race Gap in America's Police Force." The New York Times. 8 April 2015.
Although it is a problematic story for Gia, as she is placed in a mental institute for being a lifelong victim of rape that is completely disregarded, she is not the focus of this blog post. I will focus on Charles Lee, the security guard who was on duty while Gia’s rape took place.
It is interesting that a security guard was immediately a suspect for this crime when no other security guard in the building was treated like a suspect. After another patient led the team to Charles Lee, the team questions Charles Lee. He pleads,
“You know me, fin.”
And Detective Tutuola responds,
“Not enough to trust you.”
Even though Charles Lee was familiar with the detectives and on the side of the law, he was still targeted as a suspect. Not only are there not many African Americans represented in this episode besides Charles Lee, Lee was represented in a negative way. However, the creators of the show may have properly represented African Americans in Law enforcement. According to the New York Times article “The Race Gap in America’s Police Departments,” African American representation in police departments is disproportionate to the population of civilians in almost every American metropolis, including New York City. The representation of African Americans in the police and law enforcement departments might be accurately represented by the lack of diversity in this episode of Law and Order SVU.
The next topic of contention is how Charles Lee was being represented. Another issue is the way that Charles Lee was not even given a chance to be trusted to appropriately handle the situation with Gia and in fact was seen as a suspect automatically. Charles Lee is perhaps portray as a black image in the white mind, immediately to blame and underrepresented because of the blame associated with the history of African Americans. As I have mentioned before in previous blog posts, Hollywood and Law and Order SVU are aiming to maximize their profits from entertainment. The representation in entertainment, particularly in the mainstream, has no intention of dismantling the years of racism and African American misrepresentation but in fact, does a great job at erasing the history all together. When the viewers don’t take the time to think about how Charles Lee was represented, they get to experience yet another black image in the white mind.
Source:
Ashkenas, Jeremy; Park, Haeyoun. "The Race Gap in America's Police Force." The New York Times. 8 April 2015.