I bet you can guess

If you have ever read my blog and you have been on facebook or twitter today, I am willing to bet you can guess what today’s topic is.

If you guessed anywhere near “Stanford Swimmer” and “Rapist” you are dead on. More specifically if you put these two together. And I find the entire situation appalling. See, there are two groups, for example, who suffer most prominently from PTSD. The first are soldiers returning from active war situations. The other, survivors of rape and sexual assault. Imagine what that must mean about their experience as you continue.

But this situation is a living breathing example of privilege. Of White Privilege, or Male Privilege, or Class Privilege. You name it and it is showing its disgusting little head.

Ok, let me start with this. There is nothing I could ever say that would be anywhere near as powerful nor as moving as what the victim herself wrote. (I will warn you that reading it can be very difficult. I cannot even begin to imagine what this victim went through and I got sick after reading this).

Now that we have been through that, I would like to address the heroes. These were two young men who merely stepped in when they saw someone in distress. To clarify, my issue is not with them. I am proud and glad for what they did. No, what I am disappointed in is that these young men are seen as revolutionary and heroes for doing their normal human duties. Why is that? Shouldn’t their actions be seen as the expectation, not the exception?

Then we come to the father. The dad wrote what I would call a rather disturbing and disgusting letter about the incident. I will not be linking to it because it bothers me. Then the argument comes up of it is just a father defending his son and you cannot understand unless you have kids, yada yada yada….See, my dad would not have defended me in a situation like this. I love him a great deal and he loves me, but he had an understanding that sparing me my own lessons was wrong. To be entirely honest, my dad was never a big one for physical punishment, but if I were in this young rapist (yes, the jack-ass lost the right to be called a young man) position, I am not sure my dad would have stopped with merely telling me how disappointed he was in me. So yes, I am utterly and entirely disgusted by this fathers letter. So are other fathers. More so after the findings of the court.

Speaking of the court, next we come to the judge. The judge who noted he gave the rapist a shorter prison sentence because it may affect him negatively later in life. Here we are, discussing a man found guilty of a crime, unanimously. The is incredibly rare in rape cases, just so you know, because of how we tend to view victims in those cases. We are discussing a rapist. He was found guilty. Yet the judge gives the shorter sentence because it may affect this buffoon negatively. I have no words for how much I utterly despise this judge in this moment. And guess what else? He was re-elected to his seat because he ran unopposed. There are calls for his ouster, but still…WTF?

So next we come to the media. The media who shared the photo of the rapist’s “mug shot” where he was cleaned up and in a suit and tie. This was the photo of a man convicted of RAPE for crying out loud. Compare this to the photos used of other individuals, even if they are found innocent. Consider the photo that was used of Trayvon Martin surrounding that case (again, another jerk I will not be mentioning). If that isn’t race privilege on display, I’m not sure what is. And perhaps you have seen the Washington Post article talking about using the photo given by the family. Besides being wrong, let’s talk about the class privilege. In order to be provided that photo of the rapist, they needed to wait. quite some time, actually, for things to unfold. The same was apparently not true for other individuals, based on race and class.

So I am calling each and everyone of you in on this. Why does rape culture persist? Why do we still talk about feminism? About class struggles and racism? Because of hos the media, the judge, the father and this rapists friends, because of how they all acted.

I have an incredible amount of respect for the victim. I respect the two heroes.

I despise and am sickened by the rest I have named in this article.

Of course none of them sicken me anywhere remotely near as much as the rapist: BROCK TURNER

Of course I have found one great use for his doctored chance at a photo. There is a shot of his mugshot going around referring to him as a rapist. Facebook has removed this shot and people are not too happy.