I’m not done talking about this. I can’t not talk about this. So many emotions with this story. So many disjointed thoughts that I’m going to attempt to pull together.
I don’t need to rehash specifics. It’s been well publicized. A monster that raped an unconscious woman, with witnesses, was sentenced to only six months in jail. Six months. Six fucking months. I’m outraged and I’m not the only one but this is still the “justice” he was served. Because the judge said a larger sentence would have a “severe impact on him” and he “isn’t a danger to others”.
Not a danger to others, your “honor”? This woman he brutally raped and assaulted will live the remainder of her life with terror, no doubt. PTSD, stress, anxiety, most likely depression, will all be a part of her life because of his “20 minutes of action”, as his dad so eloquently described the brutal attack in a letter to the judge in his son’s defense. And a female friend of the rapists’, who also wrote a letter in his defense, decided to victim blame and say that he’s not to blame, drinking is to blame. As in, the victim’s decision to drink, as opposed to the rapists’ decision to rape. He doesn’t have to own that decision to rape. He holds little responsibility for his vulgar and disgusting actions. The justice system isn’t holding him accountable. As a matter of a fact, his mug shot even remained private until he had a nice suit and tie on, because, you know, privilege. Why wouldn’t he do this again? This was such an easy crime for him. And yes, I will even pull the “race card” here. If this Stanford Rapist was black, I’m going to go out on a limb and say his sentence would have substantial.
This situation is precisely why women don’t report rape or pursue justice when it comes to sexual assault: because justice doesn’t truly exist in this realm. Women are rarely ever perceived as honest when it comes to rape. Rapes that don’t have witnesses can hardly be prosecuted and even those that have witnesses, clearly, don’t hold weight. I could elaborate to no end on this end of the discussion…
But I also have to talk about this and how it relates to how we are raising our children.
I started writing a post last week about raising children in this day and age of privilege and this trending {disgusting} topic just gave me a much better platform to drive my point. I was in the midst of typing away about how I struggle with subscribing to modern day parenting, how everything today is forced into this “keeping up with the Joneses’ {or Kardashians}” mentality, how it’s truly harming our children. Easy is a way of life for so many kids, mine included, giving them this need for instant gratification, having no consequences for bad behavior, this owning no responsibility way of thinking. And then this piece of shit rapist comes along and basically becomes the poster child for privilege and all that is wrong with our society.
Privilege, specifically white privilege, is alive and well. And growing into a huge epidemic.
Humans are actually defending a convicted rapist and whether we, as a whole, want to admit this or not, our society is subscribing to this line of thinking every.single.day. We want everything to be easy. Easy for us as adults, easy for our children. Everything. Smart phones are an addiction of everyone I know, college degrees can be bought online with very little effort, very few know what it means to “pay dues”. Things are designed to be just so easy and accessible, especially to those with the money to buy the easy.
And, to touch on celebrating mediocrity. Although so many feel that it’s so innocent to give every child a medal at a flag football game or take away National Honor Society badges on high school graduation gowns because it will hurt others’ feelings if we didn’t do these things, it’s dangerous. We are teaching our kids that the can do the minimum for maximum results. Period. It’s not the right thing to do.
True story: I witnessed one of my seven year old daughter’s flag football teammates pushing others on the field, on his own team, bullying in it’s rarest form, and he got a medal at the end of the game, that specific game,…because it was his turn to receive a medal. Because everyone receives a medal. Why does everyone receive a medal these days?
What happened to responsibility? What happened to accountability? What happened to achievement? How is all of this easiness helping our kids and future generations? Where do we draw the line in the sand and say, “No, Brock Turner. You fucked up and you’re going to pay the consequence, no matter what your race or family financial status is”?
With all of this, the water is getting muddy and privilege is emerging like never before. I know I am drawing together some extremes here. I realize that not every privileged child will grow up to be a Stanford Rapist. But my fear is that we are raising more dangerous humans than not.
And I am right here in the thick of it all, raising my own privileged child, but trying like hell to teach her right from wrong with all of the confusing messages society is giving her. I can only hope that she will see true justice in her lifetime for heinous crimes such as rape. The outlook on that is quite bleak, though, and seems to be heading in the opposite direction. I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle, as I’m sure many others do, too.
Let’s rally to start raising responsible children to become responsible adults who own their actions. Let’s leave privilege to those who work for it and not to the Brock Turner’s of the world.
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