So fuck this jerk and his “intentions:”
Richmond walked over to the victim and personally addressed her.
“I would truly like to apologize to [girl’s name], her family, and the community … No pictures should have been sent around, let alone taken,” Mays told the courtroom. Richmond stood up and walked across the courtroom to where the victim was sitting. “I would like to apologize to you [girl’s name]. I had no intention to do anything like that,” he said, before breaking down crying.
You had no INTENTION? How did she end up raped then? By accident? You slipped, tripped and WHOOPS RAPE? You think it happens by magic? It happens just the way it happened when you did it: A bunch of guys decide their bro status means they can do whatever the hell they want, and somebody with less power than them deserves whatever she gets.
What you didn’t intend to be was the guy on trial for this. You didn’t intend to be America’s Next Top Asshole, the bogeyman all the parents tell their daughters about, the reason we have these glasses that turn colors when people put drugs in them, and everything. You didn’t intend to be going to jail. You didn’t intend to get caught, probably, or called to account when you were.
But GUESS WHAT? You act like this, and this is what happens to you. You are that guy. And it’s worth you going to jail so that everybody else understands: Your intentions don’t matter. You rape somebody, and your intention may be to not be a rapist, but that’s exactly what you are.
A.
What exactly is he apologizing for? That quote makes it look like he’s apologizing for taking and passing around the pics, not for raping an unconscious girl. Which is totally missing the point of why he’s being punished.
You’re not just being punished for humiliating and degrading a girl with embarrassing pictures that you took and then passed around to your pals. You’re being punished forraping an unconscious girl.
That’s your crime. Without the rape, the pictures could never have been taken.
Almost sounds to me like he is expressing regret for the (incriminating) pictures but that the rape was A-OK.
That’s exactly what he’s saying, MapleStreet. That’s what everyone seems to be saying. That’s what Candy Crowley and all the rest on CNN were saying.
“So sorry we got caught, we’ll be more careful next time.” You know, a rape happens in the forest but no one is there to see or hear …
The pictures are why these assholes got prosecuted in the first place. I’d be on my chair screaming THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE PICTURES.
I can’t believe it’s fucking 2013 and we’re STILL blaming the victim. I don’t care how drunk, slutty, inappropriately dressed, careless, you name it she was. You do not rape women. End, full stop.
I swear to G-d, that this is the next experimental PR drive in action: To teach profitable rapists to mimic actual remorse and ‘sorrow bomb’ all parties with working consciences, without taking risky, painful steps to dismantle the active, festering rape culture in place.
It’s like Big Tobacco forcing cognitive dissonance on the American public, when we saw coughing and cancerous smokers deny, as they were taught from childhood, that smoking caused their accelerated deaths. To the last, profit was more important than the truth.
If that asshole was sorry, he would have pled Delinquent immediately and turned state’s evidence against every jerk who protected him, from Mr. Reno on down. He would have been deposed on his every conversation with an authority of any academic institution receiving Federal funds, then cooperate fully with any Title IX civil rights lawsuit.
When he was done — under full witness protection, of course — no one would be left with a job or a reputation, and the davening needed to mimic atonement would rival the Wailing Wall’s.
So. Not. Good. Enough.
I’ve been avoiding delving too deep into this case; as a feminist, it just makes me feel so discouraged. However, today I finally caught up with thetext messages that these kids were sending, and it fills me with such despair.
This has more than a little to do with why I’m still single at 54. I’ve been feeling this hostility from men for a while now, though admittedly not to the horrific degree displayed in this case. So many men out there are so angry at women, so hateful, just looking for an opportunity to degrade or humiliate us, to bring us down a notch or two. How DARE we ask for equal rights. How DARE we come into the workplace and compete for jobs. How DARE we ask for help with housework and child care. How DARE we challenge male authority. How DARE we leave them when they mistreat us. They’re furious that we took away their ideal “Father Knows Best” world, where women were homebound and deferential, and they’re determined to make us pay for it.
(I know that there are nice guys out there; they’re the ones who post on this board. And I figure y’all are happily married or in relationships. Yes, the good ones do get snatched up — tough luck to those of us who waited.)
I’ve encountered the attitude detailed above with (too) many men in my age group. But that still doesn’t explain these young men, who grew up in a post-feminist world. Where did they pick up their “values”? From their fathers? Porn? Music videos? All of the above?
50 years of modern feminism, and I don’t feel like we’ve gotten anywhere. We keep having to fight the same battles over and over and over. I, for one, am tired. We need the Good Guys to send a message loud and clear: Rape is not cool. Abuse is not cool. Degradation is not cool. Humiliation is not cool. Guys like these young thugs have made it clear that they have no interest in what a woman has to say. It has to come from men.