If there was ever a doubt in anyone's mind that sexual assault, READ RAPE, is a very real thing in America today, then you might be surprised by this story. If you are, however, one of the many men and women who acknolwedge, understand and seek change to the accepted standard of violence against women and children in all forms, then you won't be shocked by this story, which is a heartbreaking reality.
A 15 year old girl was raped and beaten by several individuals for two hours outside of her high school, after leaving her school dance to meet her father for a ride. People watched, people walked by, people jeered AND people did NOTHING. They watched as a 15 year old girl was dehumanized, and they did nothing - no one called 911 until several hours later.
Is this how we value women and children in America today? Apparently it is. Is this what we have come to as a society, watching as a child is raped outside of her school and decide to take no action? I am so angered by this story that I cannot accurately articualte what I want to in this post, as I know there are many issues to comment on, and I know this is not the first time a story of this nature has occurred, but I will say one thing: I can already see the rape apologists swarming. She had alcohol in her system they will say, she probably acted in a suggestively seductive way they will retort, she ASKED FOR IT they will argue.
And since we all know that child rapists get a free pass (at least in the minds of many) in America, if they're famous, I wonder how the public will react to this story. Here is the story.
P.S. Don't you love how the link uses the gang rape angle? I find it digusting, but that's just my personal opinion.
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For the record, my understanding is that "gang-rape" does not mean "raped by a gang of young minority hooligans", it means "raped by a gang (group) of individuals". We should probably avoid projecting a racialized narrative on this story when the ethnicities of those involved are still unknown to the public.
I completely agree dj_sex_ed. I wasn't looking at it from a racial perspective, in the sense of a violent "gang" or group of individuals belonging to a "gang" having committed this crime. You bring up a good point that I didn't think about.
I personally find the term gang-rape to be offensive, mainly because of the way it is used in jokes, or nonchalant comments such as "I am going to gang-bang you." That is why I made that comment. I don't like the phrase, regardless of it's context.
Does that make sense?
I guess its not really a formal way to say it, but then, aren't we always complaining when newspapers use overly clinical terminology?
As I understand it, gang-rape refers to being raped by multiple people, not anything about the people knowing each other or being in a gang.
The term gang refers to any group larger than two. It predates the idea of a gang being a group of halogens who have initiations etc…It can be spontaneous or not. It implies a mass of individuals acting as one. It is a legal word for more than two individuals. It’s important as the legal ramifications of working in concert are severe for a very good reason. A gang can as a group easily over power the individual being victimized and the ganging up shows intent a thought pattern.
The term gang refers to any group larger than two. It predates the idea of a gang being a group of hooligans who have initiations etc…It can be spontaneous or not. It implies a mass of individuals acting as one. It is a legal word for more than two individuals. It’s important as the legal ramifications of working in concert are severe for a very good reason. A gang can as a group easily over power the individual being victimized and the ganging up shows intent a thought pattern.
Welcome to society.
Compare to what happend to Lawrence King.
Or is it somehow worth more for a girl to have her sexual purity than for a boy to have his life?
I do believe I said "children" and not only "little girls." I am not taking on the issue of hate crimes in this particular post (though what happened to Lawrence King is horrible and tragic). I am taking on the issue of child rape.
It doesn't matter if this were a boy or a girl being raped, what matters is that it even happened in the first place.
I do believe I said "children" and not only "little girls." And NOWHERE do I infer that a girl's or woman's life is worth more than a boy's or man's, and I don't appreciate you inferring such.
I am not taking on the issue of hate crimes in this particular post (though what happened to Lawrence King is horrible and tragic). I am taking on the issue of child rape.
It doesn't matter if this were a boy or a girl being raped, what matters is that it even happened in the first place.
It's not about her purity at all. It's about her dignity as a human being and the basic human right to not be violated in any way, sexually or otherwise. The same right the King boy had to not be tortured.
I do believe I said "children" and not only "little girls." And NOWHERE do I infer that a girl's or woman's life is worth more than a boy's or man's, and I don't appreciate you inferring such.
I am not taking on the issue of hate crimes in this particular post (though what happened to Lawrence King is horrible and tragic). I am taking on the issue of child rape.
It doesn't matter if this were a boy or a girl being raped, what matters is that it even happened in the first place.
Her "purity"? Are you a refugee from the 14th Century?
I find your use of the name Boadicea terribly ironic here.
are you fucking kidding me? Her sexual purity has nothing to do with why rape is wrong. If that is your view of why we get so upset about rape then you do not belong here and you need to go educate yourself learn about why we want rape to stop. Being raped is the most humiliating and violating experience a person can go through. I'm not saying that what lawrence king went through was not bad, it was but that is not what this is about. Right your own post about hate crimes if you want to talk about that. DON'T come onto another post and imply that rape is somehow only a young girls sexual purity when its about the violation of her right to her own body that we are discussing.
I'm not shocked, people have been MURDERED in front of audience, children, babies, toddlers by people who were NOT wielding weapons and the on lookers were sometimes rubbernecking in their cars to watch the carnage. If a person's very LIFE doesn't matter to the general public who is naive enough to think rape would take a cause for pause and action?
I can't imagine how that poor young woman feels.
Sorry for all of the posts!
Interestingly, the response that I have seen to this case thus far tells me more about race than about gender. Despite the pretty unnecessary references to the fact that the young woman was drinking, this story fits one of the very few rape narratives that we can get our heads around (like Harper Lee says in "To Kill a Mockingbird": Apparently you had to kick and holler, you had to be overpowered and stomped on, preferably knocked stone cold.) I think that if she had managed to escape with little physical injury, it would be a very different story, but since she was brutalized far beyond the forced sex, I'm pretty sure people will see it as "rape-rape." (I use that term totally facetiously, by the way: rape is rape, full stop.)
On the other hand, I am seeing a LOT of people jumping to conclusions about the race of the rapists based on the location of the high school in Richmond; although, interestingly, people can't seem to decide if it's typical "Hispanic Machismo" or "Black behavior." Peep some of the ridiculous comments like "this proves that illegals need to be forced to speak English and act like mainstream Americans or get sent back to their hovels in Mexico." YIKES.
Wow. Don't read the article comments.
Agreed. I don't know how people can be so cruel and awful.
That is a horrific thing for a girl to have to go through. Especially to be raped by a gang of people. Horrifying, and it is certainly appalling that people just watched and laughed, although the majority of those people were probably stupid, immature, teenage boys or teenagers in general.
-Nikki-
you do realize you are discriminating against people just because of their age? Teenagers are a lot of times more informed and more accepting than adults. Why must people on here when they know that the majority of the readers are teenagers or in their twenties say things like that? That is uncalled for and not okay. I seriously think that you owe the readership of this website an apology for your insensitive comments
Young people are less experienced with life than are older people - at least the majority of the time. Saying that teenagers are immature is not anymore inappropriate than saying toddlers don't know as much as their parents. It just so happens to be true.
There's a difference between equality and thinking everyone has the same potential or experiences or intelligence.
that doesn't mean that we don't have the wherewithal to stop someone from being raped. the commenter who I said that implied that because they were all teenagers they can't possibly stop this girl from being raped. That is ageism. It also allows for more rape apology because it says that they didn't stop her from being raped because they were too immature. This is not true. They didn't stop her from being raped because we live in a society that teaches young people that rape is okay
I find it disheartening how you reduce and simplify rape to a girl "losing her sexual purity." (not to mention, women are not the only victims of rape, and men are by far not the only victims of murder). I work at a rape crisis centre, and trust me, loss of so-called "sexual purity" may be a result of rape, but it is never the only "consequence" (I use this word because you suggest it is one). It's about being sexually and physically brutalized, dehumanized and degraded - rape is, after all, about power and the ability to humiliate your victim by making them perform sexual acts and endure bodily violation/torture against their will. "Sex" is merely the means in which this sadistic power is achieved. I can't even begin to imagine the level of sexual objectification this poor child endured, with the number of men who took turns gang-raping her - she is only 15 years old, and even if she wasn't, it doesn't make the situation any less deplorable than it is.
And the focus of this article is on child rape. Does your shifting of the topic to a comparison of the boy's death to the girl's dehumanization make the rape OK, or at least from what it sounds like you're doing, seem less horrid than it actually is? Many people believe rape victims who make it out alive should be grateful for "only being raped," but does that make their experiences of lesser value? Murder shouldn't happen in the first place, but murder can happen to anyone - forced sex happens on both sides of the spectrum as well, but it is undeniable that you will find more female victims in this department, and little sympathy for it (and I'm not only talking about the "Western" world, but the rape terror in the Congo, Afghanistan, etc. where this is type of shit doesn't appear on the daily news because it's as common an act as eating - but really, how much more civilized/progressive are we?).
And your creation of gender binary by specifically pointing out the rape victim as a girl, and the murder victim as a boy shows that their genders do mean something to you (otherwise, you would have used a gender neutral word, like 'child'). Sadly, rape is usually dismissed BECAUSE it is identified as a female experience forced on by a male perpetrator. This is detrimental not only to females, but to male victims of rape. Weighing one problem against another isn't going to solve anything, and as we can all see, it hasn't so far.
Sorry, it was supposed to be in reply to Boadicea's comment, but didn't show up as such.
Now here's a question. Do rape apologists visit the site? IF they do, they need to get a life.
yes they do, and they read the stories and then say that rape isn't all that bad, and we should all just quit our whining
Kitty Genovese, anyone? I think everyone here can agree that any sane, informed individual understands that rape-violent or coerced-is an abhorrent act of misogyny not to mention how the act itself speaks to notions of male entitlement that run through our culture.
What disturbs me besides the rape, of course, is the bystander effect that contributed to the crime. Fifteen people looked on. That's a shameful commentary.
Despite the media flare-up that surrounds this type of public crime and the tendency of news outlets to peddle the story as the latest outrage, hopefully everyone understands that this kind of event isn't new.
This is not very feminist for me to say, but do you guys remember the movie "A Time to Kill," in which Samuel Jackson's character shot and killed one of the men who raped his daughter?
I bring it up to say I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if this happened.