INTRODUCTION This essay is not a defense of Sean “Diddy” Combs, nor any person who has caused harm through sexual or physical violence. My position against such acts is absolute. What follows is not an attempt to justify or diminish individual responsibility. Rather, it is an effort to widen our analytical frame and examine the broader historical, legal, and psychological context in which American sexual violence exists. To speak honestly about the allegations raised in Sean

When the U.S. Supreme Court quietly cleared the way for Texas to implement a congressional map that a federal court found to be racially gerrymandered; it did more than intervene in an election. It reenacted a familiar American ritual: the judicial dismantling of Black political possibility. Justice Elena Kagan, writing in dissent, warned that the decision “disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.

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, Colle