HOUSTON – Many questions, comments, and concerns began to pour into the KPRC 2 newsroom following our recent article about a woman, widely known as the “Brick lady,” who is accused of lying about a man hitting her with a brick for not giving him her cellphone number.
Roda Osman, 33, has been charged with felony theft by deception. According to charging documents, Osman raised at least $40,000 through a fraudulent GoFundMe page she started in September that claimed she was the victim of a similar attack more than three years ago.
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The man Osman accused of hitting her in the face with a brick, Olan Douglas, told KPRC 2 exclusively that the allegations nearly put his life and business at risk. He said he’s even received death threats from complete strangers.
KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry sat down with Douglas, who he said had no idea who Osman was. He added that since the ordeal, it’s been hard to stay quiet.
“It’s been a divide between, you know, Black men, Black women. And it’s been ... it’s evil what she did,” Douglas said. “If police didn’t have this surveillance video, this evidence that basically clears you, what kind of situation do you think you would be in?”
The story sparked outrage on both sides, creating a discussion about gender war, Black femicide, and stereotypes and abuse against Black women.
Femicide, also called feminicide, is an intent to murder women just because they are women. According to the World Health Organization , ”most cases of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners, and involve ongoing abuse in the home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources than their partner.”
Black femicide, coined by Rosa Page, was made to help bring awareness to the disproportionate number of murders of Black women and girls.
There has been an increase in anti-Black misogynist views about Black women in the Black manosphere space where content creators spew out these ideas, which could attribute to the violence against Black women and girls.
According to the Global Network on Extremism & Technology, the Black manosphere is an online space where Black men usually discuss various topics from finances to dating. The Black manosphere has recently received negative attention from other content creators perpetuating misogynoir, a specific type of misogyny experienced by Black women, and aligning with white supremacist ideologies of gender and race.
The reason Osman’s case sparked outrage and the discussion about “Protect Black Women” is because it tapped into the traumatic experiences of many Black women who found themselves feeling unprotected or abused by their counterparts.
When Osman went live on Instagram, crying about being hit in the face by a Black man, she said other Black men stood around and watched as the assault happened. The video received more than 1 million views and thousands of comments, including Black women who also talked about not feeling protected and the violence against Black women and girls.
Houston native and hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, spoke out about believing Black women after she was reportedly shot in the foot by rapper Tory Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, in the Hollywood Hills in July of 2020. Three months after the shooting, Megan accused Lanez of wielding the gun.
Many online spectators questioned Megan’s story about being harmed by Peterson. Experts say it stems from misogynoir.
During Peterson’s trial, a firestorm in the hip-hop community churned up issues including the reluctance of Black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxicity, protecting Black women, and the ramifications of misogynoir.
Tia Tyree, a professor at Howard University, described misogynoir as “contempt, dislike” or mistreatment of Black women.
Tyree, whose research focuses on representations of Black women in mass media, social media, and hip-hop culture, emphasized that misogynoir has been part of the Black female experience in the U.S. for centuries, dating back to the beginnings of American slavery.
Moya Bailey, a Northwestern University professor who coined the term misogynoir, found that social media platforms such as TikTok and Twitter perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Black women because it’s profitable.
Algorithms normalize the dehumanization and objectification of Black women for other people’s pleasure or ambivalence, Washington University in St. Louis professor Raven Maragh-Lloyd said.
Although Osman is accused of making the whole thing up to gain sympathy and money from the community, this conversation still sparks a well-needed and ongoing discussion to better understand the unique circumstances Black women and girls face with intimate partner violence.