New York Gov Cuomo charged with sexual harrasment/hostile work environment

[Rev. Rye]

I guess they did something bad?

Perhaps being the exception to the rule of straight white men being the culprit?

Mack basically acted as the Ghislaine Maxwell to Keith Rainere of NXIVM with a side order of turning this abuse into a full-blown cult. Melanie Martinez allegedly raped one of her friends.

Sure, the majority of the celebrities disgraced in the wake of the MeToo movement were straight white men, but, frankly, they were already the ones with all the power. I’ve heard arguments that if there were more LGBTQ, PoC, or women (or whatever random gender identity becomes mainstream) in positions of power, this would somehow not be as much of a problem, but cases like these, many of the same power dynamics that kept people like Harvey Weinstein in power were still at play despite Spacey being gay, Cosby being black, Alison Mack being a woman, and Melanie Martinez being a Bisexual Latina. The more I look at the issue, the more convinced I become that, while the straight white male power structure is still a factor, the problem may be in the nature of power itself, how it attracts those who can easily be corrupted or are already corrupt. How the possibility of being powerful enough to intimidate the authorities can easily make one lose any inhibitions. How the prospect of being able to abuse their power over another is intoxicating.

We can break the straight white male hegemony, but, for the life of me, I can’t see how the power dynamics inherent in many of these relationships (used in its broadest definition, for lack of any better word that isn’t as charged as that one) is going to change with that.