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You may have seen headlines over the past 24 hours reporting that Energy Secretary Rick Perry said fossil fuels can prevent rape in Africa.

"Energy Secretary Rick Perry Says Fossil Fuels Prevent Sexual Assault," according to NBC News. That headline was only slightly tweaked by the likes of the BBC, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.

The Federalist's Julie Kelly is here to tell you that those headlines are misleading and simply not true.

First, the secretary's remarks, which he made at an energy summit on Thursday:

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I just got back from Africa…I think I heard a lady say that there are people dying. Let me tell you where people are dying…in Africa because of the lack of energy that they have there. And it’s gonna take fossil fuels to push power out to those villages in Africa, where a young girl told me to my face ‘One of the reasons that electricity is so important to me is not only because I won’t have to try to read by the light of a fire, and have those fumes literally killing people, but also from the standpoint of sexual assault.’ When the lights are on, when you have light, it shines the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people’s lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that. I happen to think it’s going to play a positive role.

Perry's comments were "slightly clumsy," Kelly acknowledges, but hardly sinister. Liberal journalists ignored his clearly compassionate tone, she argues. What's more, he actually made some sense. Of course, turning the lights on will not directly stop cases of sexual harassment and rape, but a lack of electricity is a major problem in Africa that is certainly not helping the epidemic.

"It is also just common sense to suggest the light generated via electricity is desperately needed throughout this dark continent for a number of humanitarian purposes, including keeping vulnerable populations such as young girls safe at night," Kelly writes.

Nevertheless, groups like the Sierra Club are demanding Perry resign over his "twisted remarks."

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so for that simpleton burning fossil fuels is the only way to get electricity in Africa -

and where should those fossil fuels come from (oh the US - well of course shipped across the Atlantic for free for sure ...)? and what money should pay for all that?

simple question: if US coal is not competitive on the world market compared to Chinese or Australian already, why should African countries buy it? btw South Africa might be the only one of the few countries in Africa with sufficient coal deposits to have no need for imports

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
I don't disagree with bringing Africa into the 21st century. Further, I believe it would be a debt the US owes to the continent.

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

But to equate a lack of electricity to rape is fucking ignorant, and blind to what happens even in our own country.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
I don't disagree with bringing Africa into the 21st century. Further, I believe it would be a debt the US owes to the continent.

Why does the US owe Africa anything?

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
I don't disagree with bringing Africa into the 21st century. Further, I believe it would be a debt the US owes to the continent.

Why does the US owe Africa anything?

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: Edwird

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
I don't disagree with bringing Africa into the 21st century. Further, I believe it would be a debt the US owes to the continent.

Why does the US owe Africa anything?

Exactly.

That's the point of being the most powerful nation in the world.

You don't owe anybody anything, you just bomb the fuck out of them if they get in the way.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

But to equate a lack of electricity to rape is fucking ignorant, and blind to what happens even in our own country.

um, he's not "equating" a lack of electricity to rape---he's saying, actually he's being in agreement with what an African woman said---that a lack of electricity contributes to sexual assault.

that some rape here occurs in daylight, or in the presence of electricity is irrelevant.

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

Just throw some diesel in their face, and they won't rape you?

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ORIGINAL: Edwird

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
I don't disagree with bringing Africa into the 21st century. Further, I believe it would be a debt the US owes to the continent.

Why does the US owe Africa anything?

Might it occur to you that JVoV is perhaps better read in history than you are?
That said, it's hard for me to believe that any American educated person is completely oblivious to the institution of slavery as existed ~ 150 years ago.
And, if digging the least bit in to it, the economic benefit to the few obtained thereby.

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ORIGINAL: Edwird

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

So while on the subject of American history . . .
Did you know that Muhammad Ali was originally named as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.?
It was just "Cassius Clay" at the time. Named after his father, of course, who himself was named after a white abolitionist former slave owner from Kentucky.
No great imagination needed whence the family name. Thank goodness the slave holders weren't Smith or Jones.
No imagination needed, either, as to why Ali chose a more appropriate name when he got around to it. I'm sure he appreciated the efforts of his namesake, but it's not hard to figure out why Ali might have forsaken the slave owner thing altogether.

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• Personal Responsibility
  
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ORIGINAL: JVoV

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

But to equate a lack of electricity to rape is fucking ignorant, and blind to what happens even in our own country.

um, he's not "equating" a lack of electricity to rape---he's saying, actually he's being in agreement with what an African woman said---that a lack of electricity contributes to sexual assault.

that some rape here occurs in daylight, or in the presence of electricity is irrelevant.

It is said that rape is about power, but I don't think that should be taken quite so literally.

In order to help prevent rape, women in Africa need to be empowered, educated, and equal. And men need to not rape them.