Chloe Hart was quoted in the USA Today article “These women spoke out about Diddy years ago. Why didn’t we listen?”
Some of the women alleging Combs abused them are Black women, which may play a part in the doubt they faced. According to Chloe Grace Hart, an assistant professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin–Madison, this dates back to the 19th century, where the minimization of of Black women’s experiences of sexual violence in the United States was “actually written into law.” “In some southern states, only white women could legally be recognized as victims of rape,” Hart says. “Certainly that is no longer the case today but remnants of that kind of thinking persist, though not necessarily at a conscious level.” In a recent study conducted by Hart, she found that Americans were less likely to say they believed a Black woman describing a sexual harassment experience compared to a white woman describing the same thing.