ABSTRACT
Although the legal system has evolved over time, legacies from slavery persist including white male entitlement to rape, thus failing to address the needs of rape victims, and degrading women of color through the use of the white racial frame. Contemporary research demonstrates that racialized and gendered violence embedded in US history lives on in modified ways. Sexual experience and deviance were racialized onto the bodies of black women during slavery, and this framing continues. The sexual crimes committed by white men against black women were dismissed entirely during slavery, in part because rape was not legally considered a crime, and also because judges framed black women as sexually promiscuous and therefore unable to be raped. The white racial framing of black women as sexually promiscuous used in an attempt to justify their rape, during slavery and today, continues to benefit whites.
