But as we drew closer, we heard them praying for the Lord to intercede on Clarence Thomas’s behalf, to rescue him from the scheming malice of Anita Hill. We fled and piled into a taxi, only to hear a black radio talk show host inveighing against Ms. Hill. One caller after another sided with Judge Thomas.

We despaired as it became clear that our organizing on Anita Hill’s behalf was ineffective in the face of outrage over a black woman who had dared to turn on a fellow African-American at the cusp of enormous judicial power. This complaint echoed across barber shops, churches and dining rooms across the country.

To our distress, Anita Hill was not defended by the most influential Democrats on the Judiciary Committee or by a majority of African-Americans. Inside the hearing room, committee members painted her as an angry and sexually deranged woman. Outside, Republican senators described her as having nefarious motives and a dubious background.

The Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson sought to provide a more highbrow analysis. Many blacks did believe that Judge Thomas likely said those things, but like Dr. Patterson, chastised Ms. Hill for bringing these matters into the public domain. To him, Judge Thomas’s repeated pornography-laden harassment against an “aloof” Anita Hill may have looked like a textbook case of workplace harassment to a white, puritanical feminist eye. But it was, in fact, a down-home style of courting that affirmed their shared racial background. It was Anita Hill who was being uppity, who deigned to think that her workplace rights had been denied.

Dr. Patterson, of course, wasn’t the first person to use a cultural defense to justify the abuse of black women. The “othering” of black women’s sexuality has long been a part of American history. This reality informed “the talk” black mothers would have with their daughters when they were summoned to work in the big house, the fields or later in factories. This stereotype has rationalized sexual abuse as culturally-sanctioned byplay between male predators of all races and black female victims.

Black women are vulnerable not only because of racial bias against them, but also because of stereotypes — that they expect less nurturing, they are more willing, no one will believe them. This is what marks them as prey to men of all races. Long before Anita Hill’s poised testimony, black women knew all too well the many ways in which the mere facts of their race and gender identities made them targets.